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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370904">I Know What You Are, I Just Don't Mind</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJVilar/pseuds/PJVilar'>PJVilar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Generation Kill, Shelter (2007)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Blow Jobs, Falling In Love, Friends With Benefits, Frottage, Getting Back Together, Hand Jobs, Love, M/M, Meet the Family, Post-Canon, Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 12:49:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>23,447</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PJVilar/pseuds/PJVilar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All my ficlets from LJ and new orginals in one place. Many thanks to all the original prompters and fic parties and such. Ratings vary, warnings vary. Title from Eliot Smith's Alphabet Town, because Our Year Out of Time is here. Other series include Piercing!AU (Brad/Nate), Cooking Under Fire (Brad/Ray).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Brad Colbert/Ray Person, Shaun/Zach (Shelter), Walt Hasser/Ray Person</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Squatterpunk!AU (Our Year Out of Time), Brad/Nate Explicit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Underage. Brad is 17 in this story.</p><p>Note: This is the first fic I ever wrote in this universe so it feels a little OOC with the later stories but that's okay</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s 92 degrees in the shade and Nate can’t be bothered to give a fuck.</p><p>The music festival has transformed the park – their ‘summer residence’ as Ray calls it – into a freak show of the best kind. The cops are watchful but not in Super Pig mode. Poke’s back in town and took some of the children over to the lip of the West entrance, where the conga players are working up a good sweat. Shady and Lovell dragged Mike off to the main stage to dance. Walt is God-knows-where.</p><p>Ray’s working, of course, but only selling pot, and only to his regulars, just in case. He tells Nate this more than once.</p><p>Nate can hear the conga players, mixing in with the hyper-fast ska band onstage and freedom rock faintly playing on a boom-box somewhere. The music swirls in with the faint breeze and everything feels lazy and joyous, the way a summer Saturday at 4 p.m should.</p><p>Next to the empty blanket with everyone’s shit strewn all over it, it’s just him and Brad in the grass now, kissing wetly and touching slow. Alone except for the other ten thousand people milling around. No one seems to care. It’s just two more kids necking in the grass. The park’s certainly seen worse, even in broad daylight.</p><p>Brad had a shower maybe the day before yesterday and he smells how Nate likes him best – like sweat and metal and musk without tipping over into stink. His chest is hairless but muscled. His nipples are unusually dark and wide, and Nate likes how they harden slowly under the lazy stroke of his thumb.</p><p>The summer sun is bringing the tan out of Brad and for the first time since Nate met him he doesn’t seem cold all the time, even now, shirtless and wonderful. Sure, it’s 92 degrees in the shade, but Nate could use a little optimism. He’d like to think this means Brad is getting better. So he does.</p><p>Brad seems to be having more fun kissing Nate than Nate’s ever seem him have doing anything – including when he successfully overrode the city’s circuits to direct free power to the squat, including the last few nights of whispered curses while they stroked each other off in the dark.</p><p>Brad’s lips graze Nate’s, pull back, hover right next to him, stealing his air. Then he pushes forward into Nate’s mouth, cutting his own laughter short as he pushes his tongue inside. It feels big and plush, stroking inside Nate’s mouth.</p><p>Nate feels the grass cool against his waist where a thin sliver of his shirt has ridden up. Brad’s left hand stays on Nate’s hip, pressing him in place lightly, while his right hand moves slowly down his back, up his chest, over the back of his neck. It’s slow and firm, and Nate’s erection has been waxing and waning for the last half hour from this.</p><p>Ray’s cracked-out backpack hits the blanket with a thud punctuated by what sounds like a hundred pennies clanking together within. One thing Nate admires about Ray – one of many, really – is how un-phased he is by anything. So it makes perfect sense to keep kissing Brad while Ray talks.</p><p>“Holy shit, you guys, Poke’s got Q-Tip jamming with the motherfuckin’ conguerros over there on the side of a goddamn trashcan. People are freaking out. Boy sounds fierce.”</p><p>Nate pulls back slightly from the suck of Brad’s mouth on his lower lip. “I’m not surprised, Ray.”</p><p>“Babies all safe?” Ray sits down on the blanket and pulls off his sneakers, wiggles his bare toes.</p><p>“Think so.” Nate stills Brad with a hand to his chest for a minute. Brad looks unsurprised and he waits, accepting this. Nate turns it over in his head for a minute. He sits up, speaking with Ray in earnest now. “Seen Rudy and Pappy?”</p><p>An airplane roars overhead, canceling out the sounds of the band and the drums and even Ray for a second. Brad rolls over onto his back with a sigh and folds his arms behind his head, watching the trajectory of the plane.</p><p>“What?” Nate says to Ray.</p><p>“I saw them over with the Deadheads,” Ray repeats. He fishes around in his bag and pulls out a small water bottle. It has an insignia of one of the companies sponsoring the festival on it. He tosses the bottle to Nate without asking if Nate wants it. “Rudy was reading tarot. He’ll probably make a mint today, that fucker.”</p><p>“What about Walt?” Nate takes a long sip of the water. It’s a bit warm. He passes it back to Brad, who finishes it off still lying on his back, then hands the bottle back to Nate, who sets it on the blanket. The wind pushes lightly through the trees, rattling the leaves above them.</p><p>Ray rolls his eyes. “Park’s full of horny young men with their shirts off. No offense, Iceman.” Brad holds up his hand in acknowledgement and then drops it back into the grass. “He’s probably off making new friends.”</p><p>“Alright,” Nate says, exchanging a look with Ray that says anything but alright. Ray holds the gaze for a moment and then shrugs. He stretches out on the blanket, shoving stuff around him with his hands and feet, and lies down on his side, using the backpack as a pillow. Nate turns back to Brad, who is still watching the sky.</p><p>“I’m gonna take a piss,” Brad announces to the entire free world, as he tends to do. Then he says, more quietly, just to Nate, “Come with me.”</p><p>“I don’t need to—“</p><p>“Come with me, Nate,” Brad says again, gently commanding this time. Another one of those genuine smiles expands across his face and Nate, once again, can’t say no.</p><p>“Ray, can you watch the—“</p><p>“Yeah, LT,” Ray replies without lifting his head. His eyes are probably closed beneath his sunglasses. “Don’t sweat it. I’m all out of product. I’m gonna hang for a while.”</p><p>They get to their feet separately. Nate grabs his mailbag while Brad slips his feet back into his checkered Vans. Faint applause and shouting replaces the sound of the conguerros.</p><p>Brad stalks over to the blanket and looks around for his black t-shirt. He unearths it from under Ray’s calf and lets out an annoyed growl, then he snaps it once at Ray’s ass, hard. Ray sits up with a yowl, takes a swat at Brad and misses. Brad leans down and ruffles Ray’s spiky hair roughly with a grin, then grabs Nate’s hand and takes off running, Nate in tow.</p><p>“I love you, crazy fuckers!” Ray calls after them.</p><p>Once they’re on the pathway, Brad lets go of Nate’s hand and saunters slightly ahead of him to help them get through the crowds. The Heavy Metal women, with their dreamy, airbrushed expressions, bob and weave ahead of Nate. They look like a fever dream about fucking. Some days, Nate could look at that tattoo for hours, trying to see some secret part of Brad’s story in it, some part of his heart. Some days he doesn’t see it at all, only Brad’s broad, muscled back, emanating focused energy like every other part of him.</p><p>When they exit the park through the old iron main gate, they fall back into step, side by side. They walk to the corner in silence but for the occasional honking horn and the buzz of crowded streets.</p><p>“Wanna get off?” Brad says it conversationally, without looking over at Nate, like he’s asking if Nate wants to grab a hamburger.</p><p>“Sure.” Nate sticks his thumb to the right, back toward the park behind them. “Where, in the mens’?”</p><p>“Fuck, no.” The light changes and Brad nods for them to cross. As they walk, he turns and gives Nate a mild sneer. “Can you imagine what it looks like in there by now? Not to mention the smell. It’s probably been cordoned off as a disaster site. I have a better idea.”</p><p>Two blocks later, Brad stops in front of The Calypso. It’s one of those glass and whatever boutique McHotels that are pushing in to every neighborhood with a park or a riverfront. The palette seems to be jet black and see-through and Nate is instantly annoyed by it.</p><p>“What,” he says to Brad, who is pulling his t-shirt over his head. “Did you book us a room?”</p><p>“I wish,” Brad says. “Come on. Game face.”</p><p>It’s weird to be following Brad’s directives for a change, but Brad is the one with the plan. Nate goes in first, through the over-sized revolving door, under the feathered chandelier and across the marble floor. He walks with purpose, his mailbag slung casually over his shoulder. He could be a college kid. Some rich guy’s son. Anybody.</p><p>He keeps walking, following Brad’s directions, until he hits the bathrooms outside the ballroom on the second floor. The door is open and Nate walks in, whistling low at the sheer ridiculousness of the black and white decor. There are about twenty stalls and the place seems abandoned, since no event is going on right now.</p><p>Nate glances around, then walks into the furthest stall on the right. He bolts the door, then, after rolling his eyes at what he is about to do, crawls underneath, counting off: one, two, three, four. Then he stands up in the stall he’s reached, and waits.</p><p>Brad was probably being paranoid, but Nate can appreciate some good paranoia, especially if it means fooling around in an air-conditioned place without getting caught on the security cameras.</p><p>About two minutes after Nate is situated, he hears the door swing open and then closed. He hears nothing at all for a few seconds, then the squeak of Brad’s Vans. He can just feel his heartbeat start to speed up when Brad opens the door.</p><p>Seeing him is a shock, a good shock, and they smile at one another beneath the florescent light. Brad locks the stall door and presses himself head to toe against Nate in one quick step. Nate moves to untie the top of Brad’s cargo shorts but Brad pushes his hands away.</p><p>“Nuh-uh,” he whispers, and cradles Nate’s jaw in his hands before kissing him, messy and deep. It’s a lot different than in the park. That was all the time in the world. This is not enough time at all.</p><p>When Brad moves away, he pats the top of the toilet tank while catching Nate’s stare.</p><p>“Why?” Nate mouths.</p><p>Brad leans over and whispers in his ear, pointing at the floor, “Anyone walking by will just see one pair of feet.”</p><p>“Jesus, the things you learned in military school. Stealth hand-jobs,” Nate chides, but he kisses Brad’s cheek and hops up onto the tank.</p><p>“You can only imagine,” Brad says softly, straddling the toilet. Once he’s sitting on the seat, he takes Nate’s feet in his hands and moves them so Nate’s feet are balanced on the seat over Brad’s legs. “But I wasn’t planning to jerk you off.”</p><p>Brad unzips Nate’s denim cutoffs. It’s still surprising how precise, even delicate, he can be with his fingers even though his hands are huge, the palms work-rough. Brad pulls Nate’s just-hardening cock out of his cutoffs – Nate stopped wearing underwear last week just to make these moments easier -- and sighs at the sight. Nate exhales, careful not to put any sound into it.</p><p>Brad holds Nate’s dick firmly in his right hand and just watches with a small smile as it twitches in his hand and starts to fill with blood. Then leans his head against Nate’s right thigh, and looks up at him.</p><p>Brad’s breath is coming out just as ragged as it does when Nate’s stroking his cock hard and fast.</p><p>“I never get to see this,” Brad whispers, and starts to move his hand. Nate shudders and watches, shudders again. “I want to watch you get hard. And then I want to feel you in my mouth. Okay?”</p><p>“Fuck, yes,” Nate says, feeling just how much he wants this. “Okay.”</p><p>Nate looks carefully at Brad’s face hovering just over his dick as he gets worked to full hardness by Brad’s firm hand. He looks carefully at the scruff of blond hair that Brad still refuses to grow out, the gleaming blue eyes, the ever-set jaw that sometimes gives way to that fucking heartbreaking smile. Like now.</p><p>“Try to be quiet,” Brad says, almost silently. He looks up at Nate once, still smiling, then closes his eyes as he takes Nate into his mouth.</p><p>Nate grits his teeth hard as Brad sucks once on his dickhead, then moves smoothly down the length, applying suction as he goes. The first time he pulls back there’s a loud sucking sound that makes Nate wince. The next time, Brad somehow adjusts, doesn’t try as hard, and it’s much quieter.</p><p>They’re just figuring out how to make it good. Nate can move into it, but not thrust too hard or he loses balance, and Brad presses into Nate’s groin with his fingers like he does when he’s jerking Nate off, which makes Nate’s cock go even more taut and thick. Nate can feel the first pull of his orgasm building when the door to the entrance swings open with a painful creak.</p><p>They freeze. Brad opens his eyes and flicks them upwards to meet Nate’s. In a moment there is the clear, trickling sound of someone pissing, probably in one of the urinals.</p><p>Brad keeps his eyes wide and fixed on Nate’s as he slowly pulls up the length of Nate’s cock, opens his mouth briefly around the head, then closes it and sinks back down.</p><p>“Fuck,” Nate mouths silently, and runs his fingers into Brad’s hair, gripping his skull harshly to keep from making noise. He can feel his balls grow heavy, feel that pull of orgasm come back into his body.</p><p>Shoes move across the floor outside the stalls and a sink turns on, water quietly spraying, as Brad bobs his head quickly on Nate. The sink is turned off and there is the soft thumping of towels being pulled from the dispenser.</p><p>Nate feels everything that feels good to him come surging forward – a wet mouth that wants to please him, the feeling of freedom, getting away with something, and all the unnamed stuff between him and Brad.</p><p>Nate arches up, so close, and suddenly tenses, afraid in a way he can’t quite understand. And then Brad reaches the short distance between them with his left hand, pushing it into Nate’s mouth for Nate to bite and suck on, for Nate to let go on, which he does.</p><p>Brad moves his other hand to fist the base of Nate’s cock while he sucks deep and then Nate comes, the first pulses of it flying from him, pouring into Brad’s mouth while Nate suckles at his calloused palm. As it all starts, they hear the door creak open and then slam closed.</p><p>“Huh,” Nate groans, so softly, but everything he was holding back comes out in it. He shudders again and again, softer and softer as smaller spurts come out of his cock into Brad’s now still mouth.</p><p>He loosens his grip on Brad’s skull until he is stroking Brad’s hair. Lovingly, he’ll admit that much, and only to himself.</p><p>He looks down at Brad, stupid with satisfaction, and sees Brad pull off and then hold himself very still.</p><p>“Brad?”</p><p>Without moving his head, Brad reaches to the side and feels for the toilet paper dispenser. He locates it and pulls some off, then spits into it. Nate watches him, appraising the set of his jaw and what it could mean, as Brad dabs at his mouth, breathing hard. ”Sorry,” he says, into the wad, then drops it between his legs into the toilet.</p><p>“I don’t care,” Nate says. His stupid satisfaction feels like it might turn into that just stupid you feel sometimes after sex, when your cock is hanging out and it’s over and you’re not distracted by actually doing it anymore.</p><p>He rubs the back of his hand down the side of Brad’s face. “You okay?” he says, at normal volume.</p><p>Brad nods and then looks up at him, his face tense. “I’ve never –“ he says, then takes a breath and rephrases. “I’ve never,” he says, a statement this time. And then that smile comes and Nate returns it, his blood singing again.</p><p>“Can I get you off?” Nate says. Brad dabs at the tip of his softening cock with another wad of tissue and then tucks him back into his cutoffs and zips him up. Nate can’t tell if Brad is hard or not, since his shorts are so ridiculously loose.</p><p>“Not yet.” Brad stands up, still straddling the toilet and leans down by Nate’s ear. "I want to be horny for you the rest of the day. Then tonight –“. He stops, and looks down at Nate’s shoulder, runs his palm across it. There’s sweat beaded along Brad's neck and the collar of his t-shirt is damp. He speaks down at his hand when he says it.</p><p>“Tonight, can I fuck you, Nate?</p><p>When Nate kisses him then, he tastes himself on Brad’s tongue. It tastes good, salty and deep and mysterious. Complicated. That’s fine.</p><p>“Let’s continue this conversation somewhere else,” he says, stepping down from the toilet tank.</p><p>“Roger copy.”</p><p>They stand outside on the patio at Rockland’s, sharing a $2 PBR special by way of afterglow. Nate will take it. Brad would’ve had to scam any higher priced beer, and he’s glad Brad didn’t go that route, flirting with some older man or woman at the bar inside. Not just now.</p><p>“So,” Brad says, handing Nate the beer. The air is heavier but still not chilly. It must be around six o’ clock. Eighteen hundred, as Brad still says. “What I said before.”</p><p>“Fuck, yes, you can fuck me,” Nate replies. “Where?”</p><p>Brad tips his head down and gives Nate his most bemused expression. “Please don’t tell me I have to explain this to you.”</p><p>“No, idiot, I mean where can we go? I’m not giving it up for you on the docks with the rent boys and the tricks.” Nate takes a deep sip, eyebrows raised, to punctuate that thought.</p><p>“So delicate, aren’t we,” Brad says. “You’re worth blowing some money on. Much as I’d like to have you in a room at the Calypso, I think we’re talking more like two hours at Stanwyck East. But it’s a bed and a shower and it’s not completely filthy. Or we could do it in your room.” He takes the beer out of Nate’s hand and drinks.</p><p>Nate stares at Brad, shifting his weight uneasily from foot to foot. “At the squat? We’ll die of heat exhaustion.”</p><p>“Yes, Nate,” Brad starts, and oh crap, here it comes. “I’m aware that we haven’t all been sleeping in the park this week as some sort of hippie-bullshit, trust exercise, kumbayah singing circle, Outward Bound experiment. I know it’s hot as hell. But it’s got a mattress and a frame and a lock on the door.”</p><p>The Christmas tree lights they have strung up on the patio switch on. Brad hands the beer back over to Nate, tipping it toward him to cajole him into finishing it. His expression softens from Iceman back to Brad.</p><p>“And," he says, "I like it there.”</p><p>Nate drains the beer and crushes the cup in his hand, holds onto it. “Well, I’ve obviously gone insane but okay.” He gestures toward the street and they head out.</p><p>When they get to the corner as they head back to the park, Nate finishes the thought</p><p>“We’ll figure it out. Fuck me at home tonight. Our very overheated home. In our bed.”</p><p>“Our bed,” Brad repeats, stripping his t-shirt back off again. He tucks it into one of his gigantic pockets.</p><p>“If you want,” Nate replies, keeping his voice just as even.</p><p>Brad glances at him and turns his face to the sky. They walk back together through the old iron gate. “Obviously, you have gone insane. You know, the thought of my cock can do that to a person.” He looks over at Nate with a teasing smile.</p><p>“Really,” Nate says, nodding.</p><p>“Really.”</p><p>“Wow,” Nate says, adjusting his mailbag back on his shoulder. “Can’t wait to see what your actual cock can do to me.”</p><p>The park seems a bit more gutted, more plastic cups in the grass and the wastebaskets overflowing. But it looks prettier too, burnished by early evening summer light. A rock band is playing now, one of those groups with 18 people and probably a fucking concertina and it sounds so huge and full, like the air can’t possibly hold all the sound.</p><p>One of the many vendor tables lining the path catches Nate’s eye, and he squeezes Brad’s hand. Brad squeezes back.</p><p>“I’ll meet you over there. I just want to check something out.”</p><p>Brad nods and saunters off, lean and easy, heading back toward the gents and the babies and whatever mischief they may have gotten up to.</p><p>Nate watches him go, then walks over to the local sex store’s safe sex table, where a few people mill around, chatting with the staff and looking at pamphlets. Nate fishes one condom -- it looks blue, maybe – and a small sample of lube out of two separate fishbowls, both marked “Fuck Safely For Free!” He hesitates for a moment, and then takes big, beautiful handfuls of both, stuffing them into his pockets.</p><p>One of the staff seated behind the folding table, a girl with blue dreds and a leather collar, catches him. She smiles wide, nodding her head at his good fortune. Nate smiles back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Brad/Nate, Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT), First Kiss</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Not explicit. Underage - Brad is 17.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s a small park. There are no bodies of water. At night, there are hardly any stars.</p><p>What is here is surprising. At least 30 varieties of trees. Edible plants and roots, even berries. Birds that are sometimes shocking to happen across.</p><p>Back in March, Nate and Poke and Gabe were cutting across the main lawn to get home and Gabe nearly got clipped by a red-winged blackbird with a few yards of cassette tape in its beak.</p><p>“Check that out,” he’d said, watching it swoop upwards toward a willow tree. “It’s building a nest with that. It’s making do. That’s so cool.” When they got back to the squat, Nate noticed a nick in Gabe’s glasses, maybe from the bird grazing them. Gabe didn’t care much. He just smiled.</p><p>It’s a park. It’s a campground. It’s a home. Nate loves it even though things about it make his skin crawl, even more so now that they’ve camped here for nearly a week.</p><p>He supposes that means the place is like family. Rather like the boys surrounding him now, asleep or half asleep or bullshitting with each other in the dark, sleeping on tattered blankets, heads pillowed on their jackets.</p><p>Another family that snuck up on him, when he was trying to stay detached and have ideals and shit like that.</p><p>He’s looking up at the lack of stars and hoping his mind can rest enough to sleep when Brad comes back. He can sense Brad standing over him which, let’s face it, is hardly amazing. It’s like sensing that a bus is about to hit you. The boy is large. But Nate senses him more than he should, more than is appropriate, even in the darkness shot through with lamplight.</p><p>Three nights ago Brad reached for him, unzipped his pants and made no motion to stop Nate from doing the same. It was quick, bitten-back grunts and nails pressing into wrists, and it was hot as all fucking hell.</p><p>Two nights ago he reached for Brad and the results were, surprisingly, even better than the first time. Last night their hands knocked together in the dark, all pretense of someone having to make the first move abandoned. It felt harder to stay quiet. They managed.</p><p>Nate figures they’re out of variations. So this thing is probably over. He supposes it’s lucky that it didn’t seem to fuck with the friendship, with Brad’s respect for him. It was nice while it lasted.</p><p>That’s probably for the best. There’s too many other things to focus on. The bullshit with Alpha squat. The tension with the cops and the crackdown on the homeless. The heat. Walt.</p><p>Brad steps over Nate’s body and squeezes in next to him on the thin cotton blanket. They’d been using tarps underneath but at this point the ground is the only cooling factor, so they try to cuddle in close to it.</p><p>Ray had a good idea – to dig shallow graves to sleep in, to get colder – but there’s no way to actually pull it off. You can smuggle a brick of heroin through here, but not a shovel.</p><p>“Hey,” Brad says, unrolling into a prone position on his stomach, head resting on his hands. Nate’s mild surprise rolls through his belly – Brad set his sleeping bag down far away tonight. He’d taken it as a sign, or at least a comment.</p><p>“Good walk?” Nate whispers.</p><p>“Alright,” says Brad. “It’s so different at night. I like to know where I am.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Nate says. He doesn’t look over, but he can feel Brad’s gaze. Not a stare any more. Brad’s guard is still up, always up, but the posturing is gone.</p><p>“I’m sorry today sucked so bad,” Brad says. “That Schwetje guy is a fucking moron.”</p><p>“Brad, I can’t.”</p><p>“You can’t what? Say he’s a fucking moron? He is.”</p><p>“I can’t talk shit about him. I can’t let these guys hear that.”</p><p>“He’s incompetent.”</p><p>“He runs Alpha squat. There’s bad blood between us. He could throw my ass to the police commissioner, get us evicted and cut a deal with the city. I have to play nice with him. To keep us all alive.”</p><p>Nate shuts his eyes. It feels like he’s glaring at himself.</p><p>“You know,” Brad says, in his soft, measured way, “I kind of thought there was a whole big world out here that I knew nothing about. And actually it turns out the whole big world bears quite a resemblance to the chain-of-command bullshit that was military school. More than I realized.”</p><p>Nate stutters a breath, a ghost of a laugh, looks back up at the sky. “I could be wrong.”</p><p>“I don’t think so,” Brad replies.</p><p>Nate moves onto his side and looks Brad in the eye for the first time tonight. He has no idea what he’s about to do, but it’s a choice of extremes.</p><p>Unzip Brad’s pants and try for night number four, for a few minutes of a great handjob and all the other crap rolling downhill at them fading to black.</p><p>Or, wait for Brad to reach for him, and then say this shouldn’t happen anymore. They’re friends. They’re both all fucked up. Brad’s too young for this and Nate shouldn’t have fucked around with him in the first place. Brad should go home and have a life again. Far away from here.</p><p>And then the unseen option happens. Because right then, under a total lack of stars, Nate looks at Brad and sees everything he is. A genius. A fuckup. A wild warrior. A silly seventeen year old boy. It’s arresting. It has been from the start.</p><p>And whatever Brad sees in Nate, it’s enough for him to move a hand up toward Nate’s face. To stroke his cheekbone with one finger and then, when Nate doesn’t move away, lay his palm against Nate’s face.</p><p>Everything in him leaps at the touch.</p><p>When they move toward each other, it’s fast, but Nate is careful to angle his head right, not to clang their teeth together. The first kiss is simple, strong. Nate feels this crazy need to press against Brad, to push his lips into Brad so hard it hurts.  But he moves back a fraction, enough to complete one kiss and start another, Brad’s lips opening slightly against his.</p><p>Nate likes it all. He likes the soft noises of their lips parting and pressing. He likes the first hard slide of Brad’s tongue in his mouth, followed by the briefest scrape of teeth against his bottom lip.  He likes Brad’s breath coming out in deep, uneven exhales against his cheek, the fingers of Brad’s one hand curling around the back of his neck.</p><p>He likes how everything feels against his exploring palms – Brad’s face, the soft brush of his short hair, the sharp bones and smooth skin of his shoulders, as Nate palms into the top of Brad’s t-shirt.</p><p>They never make it below the waist that night. They do tangle together, pressing and tasting, rocking slowly against the cold ground.</p><p>It’s a city park. Nate hears crickets and shouting, stillness and a truck running over a pothole somewhere. Every now and then some sound creeps across his consciousness for just a moment and then he sinks back in to the option he had no idea would be available, into another surprise he just happened across.</p><p>He sinks back into Brad.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT) Brad/Nate, Brad Realizes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Not explicit. Warning: Nate is shitfaced drunk. One of my biggest regrets about OYOOT was Ray was in a whole band in my head and that never made it in,</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nate is shitfaced. Brad has never seen Nate shitfaced but he's been warned. He'd thought it was just more bullshit the gents were giving him, more impossible stories about their storied past to see how gullible Iceman was. Straight-edge, Johnny Appleseed of the lower East Side, pigeons swoop down from awnings to alight on his shoulders Nate Fick? Crazy when drunk? Nah.</p><p>But then Poke really did erect -- and tag-- that billboard on the Gaza strip and Walt really did scale the cabling on the fucking Brooklyn Bridge. And Ray Person exists.</p><p>If Brad's learned anything in the last few months it's just how completely fucked reality can be.</p><p>Being faced with the actuality of a shitfaced Nate Fick is alarming anyway. Brad's eyes are still adjusting to how dark it is inside the club when Poke muscles his way across the room toward something Brad hasn't identified yet.</p><p>It's a blur of dissonace and flailing arms. Heads are bobbing on the stage beyond the crowd but Brad can't make out Ray. Maybe this isn't even his band. Brad takes a few more steps forward into the nicotine and marijuana smog and realizes the ceiling gets even lower as you walk forward. He halts.</p><p>He see Poke's bald head get right into the center of the mosh pit and then he sees Nate. Poke grabs Nate's arm and Nate rears back and pushes him hard with both hands. The crowd on the periphery catches Poke and rights him.</p><p>Holy shit.</p><p>Poke walks back in toward Nate, who is dancing again. Despite the fact that Brad senses something really bad is going on with Nate, he looks beautiful in a way, throwing his body around with total abandon.</p><p>Next thing Brad knows, Poke is shoving him and Nate toward a back exit, out a door covered with peeling band stickers and graffiti.</p><p>Nate doesn't fight back when Poke starts lecturing, after sitting him down on an exposed pipe in the alley. Nate stares hard at the wall in front of him, eyes glassy and unfocused.</p><p>"Okay, LT. How much?" Poke says, hands on his hips.</p><p>Nate holds up three fingers. "Three beers, Tony. Just three. And a whole lot of vodka."</p><p>Poke shakes his head. "I really thought you were done with this shit, LT," he says.</p><p>"It's been a year since I was this stupid." Nate's head is practically sliding around on his neck and he's grinning down at his knees. He's covered in sweat and his shins look dirty. "You guys are this stupid all the fucking time."</p><p>Poke laughs. "True that, son." He claps Brad on the shoulder. "I'm gonna get him some water and let Ray know we're hauling his sorry ass home." Poke about faces and slips back inside.</p><p>Brad stands for a few more moments, watching Nate. Then he walks the two paces between them and slowly kneels down on the dirty pavement in front of him. People probably fuck and shoot up in this alley. Maybe both at once.</p><p>He's pretty sure Nate's dozed off, when Nate says, without moving or looking up, "I'm so fucking tired."</p><p>"I'd imagine you are," Brad says. He reaches out, sure he's doing this all wrong, and puts one hand on Nate's knee. Nate swings to the side and then jerks upright, eyes still closed.</p><p>"I'm so fucking tired of keeping everyone going. I'm so fucking tired of fighting a system that's gonna win anyway." He throws his hand onto Brad's shoulder, holding on, maybe to keep from falling forward, maybe not.</p><p>Brad puts his hand around Nate's back and gently guides him forward. Nate follows until his head is leaning on Brad's shoulder. Brad feels Nate's lips brush there lightly, above his collarbone. It feels good.</p><p>"I know," Brad says. "I really get it."</p><p>"I'm so fucking tired of being a good boy," Nate mumbles. He moves his thumb across Brad's knee. Brad pulls him in a little closer. He's never really taken care of anyone before.</p><p>"I know," Brad says. He kisses Nate's temple, slick with alcohol-tinged sweat.</p><p>It's not the best way to realize you're in love. But, when Brad thinks about it later, he'll see he loved Nate all along. This is just when he admitted it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT), Brad/Nate, First Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Underage - Brad is 17. Explicit.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brad eyes the full clawfoot bathtub for a second. That’s about as long as he can stop eyeing Nate, damp and naked except for the beige towel around his hips. His sleeve tattoos are wildly vibrant against his bare skin. Brad wants to make a list of them, know them all by heart.</p><p>“Is this a comment on my hygiene?” he asks, smirking to cover how excited he is about what’s about to happen.</p><p>Nate tips his head. “A little. Mostly it’s to cool us down. Take a quick dip, don’t drain the tub.”</p><p>Brad strips his shirt, rolls it up tight. “You’re not joining me?”</p><p>“Nope.” Nate lights one more pillar candle and sets it with the others on the tile floor. It’s not for ambiance, just to keep from having to use the generator while they’re the only ones here. “Come in when you’re done.”</p><p>Brad soaps up and splashes it off, then lies still in the tub. He watches the candle light reflecting off the water, onto the walls, making it looks like everything around him is in slow, sinuous motion. He goes under for a minute and holds his breath, still watching.</p><p>*</p><p>He blows out the candles and pads quietly into Nate’s bedroom, dry now, his clothes left behind on the tile floor. More candles are lit, casting less of a glow in here. But Brad can see the red comforter and the cityscape paintings, the full wall of books in shoddy handmade shelves.</p><p>Nate lies on his stomach in the middle of the bed, naked, reading AdBusters. He pushes the magazine off the bed before even raising his head to look at Brad, then rolls over onto his back, smiling. His hair is probably dry already, it’s that hot.</p><p>They’ve done nearly everything you can do, and yet it’s never been like this, with no clothes. Or even really alone. Brad’s pretty hard just from looking, and from all the build-up, and his bravado is slipping. But he walks forward, toward Nate, who looks as relaxed in himself and strangely gorgeous as he did the day they met.</p><p>Nate kneels up on the bed and pulls Brad down, kissing him and pressing his own growing erection into Brad’s thigh. He turns away and reaches under one of his pillows, pulling out a condom, then turns to Brad, who growls as he leans over and takes back the kiss.</p><p>*</p><p>“Come here,” Nate says pulling him down, lying back in the pillows, hot air and their next door neighbors’ yelling both flowing into the room through the open windows.</p><p>“Come on,” Nate says softly, petting his hair as Brad’s kisses on his shoulder grow fierce and biting, as Brad shoves his hands under Nate’s back, feeling the soothing cool from the bath dissipating, leaving their bodies warm, then warmer.</p><p>“Like this,” Nate says, his feet planted on the mattress, bearing down on Brad’s finger, which slips inside him more easily than Brad expected. Brad smirks at him, but it’s a lie. Nate’s lubed and ready and it’s thrilling.</p><p>He moves his finger back and forth, mainly to know what that is, then draws it out and goes to put the condom on.</p><p>“You’re ready for me,” murmurs in Nate’s ear, grinning as Nate reaches down and lines him up. “I thought I’d have to do that.”</p><p>“We’ll get to that,” Nate says, his eyes shut in concentration, his breathing fast. He's smiling wider than Brad knew he could, and he presses Brad inside.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT), Brad/Nate, Missing scene</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I am not leaving Ray until Walt is in program. I am not leaving here until Mike tells me he doesn’t need my testimony. I’m not going home until Jill is on break because I’m not dealing with Mark and Susan by myself right now. And I won’t leave you until I’m ready.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nate keeps pushing. It’s understandable. But sometimes ground must be held, even in the face of orders. Brad has his reasons. It turns out to be easier to write them down and rehearse them.<br/><br/>Sometimes he closes his eyes in the face of Nate’s desperation and just runs through the whole list out loud, trampling right over Nate’s words.<br/><br/>“Jesus, will you stop fucking doing that,” Nate says the fifth time and Brad can’t look at him, shakes his head and talks louder. It’s the same thing every time:<br/><br/><em>I am not leaving Ray until Walt is in program. I am not leaving here until Mike tells me he doesn’t need my testimony. I’m not going home until Jill is on break because I’m not dealing with Mark and Susan by myself right now. And I won’t leave you until I’m ready.</em><br/><br/>Brad repeats it while Nate yells at him about safety and stubborn and there’s the sound of something hitting the wall but it’s a pussy sound; he probably just threw a paperback.<br/><br/>The wood of their kitchen table has a soft, papery feel beneath his palms. He works them over the surface until Nate stops yelling and Brad can hear the chair opposite him scrape against the linoleum.<br/><br/>“And I won’t leave you until I’m ready,” he finishes in a level voice. He opens his eyes to Nate staring into the steady snowfall outside their window.<br/><br/>“You’re so annoying,” Nate says.<br/><br/>“Is that what the police tell you when you’re bitching them out over your Miranda rights?” Brad says. He takes one of the dimes lying there from change Nate dumped on the table and spins it. Nate turns back to him; Brad doesn’t have to look up to know it.<br/><br/>“It’s possible I’m more fond of you,” he says. With a sharp sound, he thumbs the dime down flat.  Brad trails one finger along the side Nate's thumb there, then lays his hand over Nate’s.<br/><br/>“I promise I’ll go home. Soon. But I can’t run out on—“<br/><br/>Nate interrupts him and it’s a blessing, in a way.<br/><br/>“Okay,” he says. “I hear you.”<br/><br/>The nights after that, when Brad is sleeping in a bed that’s too small for him even by himself, he longs for that Nate. The one bundled up against the cold, even in the oven-warmed kitchen. He longs for those small touches, the side of an index finger and the back of a hand.<br/><br/>They don’t talk on the phone and Brad never promised to come back. He wanted to make that promise. He knew he would return, but Nate wouldn’t let him say the words.<br/><br/>“See what happens,” he’d whispered against Brad’s cheek while they’d held each other in the doorway of their apartment, Nate’s apartment again once Brad stepped into the hall. He was so busy wanting Brad to have every opportunity that he wouldn’t discuss the only one Brad could see wanting.<br/><br/>It was wise. It hurt, but it was wise. He was only eighteen, even if he’d become much more.<br/><br/>At night in that bed, in a quiet house on a street so still it didn’t make sense to Brad’s ears, he goes over the list. No charges against Ray. Walt made it through detox and that’s supposedly the worst part. The case against the city is strong, and his deposition is filed away at Mike’s office, notarized and everything. They’re all as okay as they can be, like him. Tucked in safe for now until the next day dawns.<br/><br/>He never left Nate. Brad circles his fingers against his palm at night – it feels better and hurts worse than when he jerks off and thinks about the hot things they did and the hot things he still wants to do. Of course, he does that, too. But always he brushes one hand against the other, and that other hand becomes Nate’s, holding his, lighting up every cell on the surface and within.<br/><br/>Brad knows that whether or not he’s being waited for, he has a home. Nate will open the door for him, whenever he makes it back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Midnight Drop, 2011(Squatterpunk!AU [OYOOT]), Brad/Nate, Ensemble</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Brad and Nate try to match-make Ray and Walt</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the end they let Ray go ahead and rig up the motorized disco ball in the garden for the midnight drop. It gives him something to do. And it gives Walt something to assist with.</p><p>“I love you motherfuckers,” Tony says, startling Brad and Nate so hard that Nate actually makes a sound. Shit. They’re getting old and soft.</p><p>Brad turns to glare at Tony, who only glares back. He’s got two bags from the old school liquor store on C in his gloved hands. They love him over there. “Two of the biggest, baddest guys I know,” he continues, “and y’all are a couple of yentas.”</p><p>“It was Brad’s idea,” Nate says with a grin that draws Brad’s eye back to the purpled bruise on his cheekbone. He lets the worry settle beneath his feet. Old trick of Rudy’s.</p><p>“All due respect, sir: was not,” Brad replies, turning from glass window in the back door and walking back down the corridor. Because he’s not spying on Ray, newly divorced and armed with a glue gun and a ladder and something that looks halfway between a pulley and a bomb.</p><p>Not now, anyway.</p><p>“So, what do you think?” Nate asks behind him on the stairs.</p><p>“About what?” Brad replies. The door opens on the second try and he makes a mental note to check on that later, part of a long running list in his head. They’ve already ticked off most of their checklist for the party and can actually relax until people start showing.</p><p>“Ray,” Nate says, as he hangs his cardigan off his hook inside the door. Brad can practically see the gears whir in Nate’s head as he keeps himself from tossing it on the floor. They’ve got each other pretty well-trained, after all this time.</p><p>Nate looks up at him and scratches the back of his neck. Finishes the thought. “Walt.”</p><p>Brad pulls Nate into his arms, just a little ways, and tries to get away with further inspecting Nate’s face while he answers the question. “I think it’s been almost twenty years in the making but I also think who fucking knows.”</p><p>“Just ask me,” Nate says, looking right into Brad. Man, he has never been able to get away with a damn thing with this one.</p><p>“How’s your face,” he says as dispassionately as he can muster.</p><p>“Better. And you’re not just a yenta, but a Jewish mother to boot.”</p><p>And it’s not just worry beneath his feet now, but all these years of risk-taking. The images that slice through his mind while he’s carrying on and Nate is out there in the world. Nate’s got a title now but the title doesn’t protect him when he’s demonstrating at Zuccotti Park. Only after, when the media gets word.</p><p>Brad just drags Nate in against his chest, rubs his chin over the top of his head. “Did I say anything?”</p><p>The embrace deepens. “No, you didn’t. Thank you.”</p><p>Almost twenty years. And a new one coming.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT), Ray/Walt, Missing Scene</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ray's gonna keep his hand out until Walt takes it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Walt's past. Warning: it's not good. Mentions of drug use.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="commentreply j-c-resize-images">
  <p>It's full light now and they're not being tailed so Ray stops pushing Walt forward along the rooftops and just fucking collapses. Someone's keeping pigeons up here so they probably shouldn't linger. Walt sits down next to him and wipes his nose with the sleeve of his coat.</p>
  <p>"If you say you're sorry again, I'll get those pigeons to peck you to death." Ray grits out, still grasping for steady breath, watching it puff away into the cold. Walt shakes his head and moves closer, so they're touching along one side.</p>
  <p>"Did you ever tell anyone?" he says. "About me?"</p>
  <p>"Which part? The part that I've been in love with you for three years or the part where we don't fuck? Not the part that you've been fucking snorting drugs, 'cause for some reason I've been too stupid to see that until now."</p>
  <p>"You weren't stupid, Ray. I hid it. And I meant the part where I have an arrest record."</p>
  <p>Ray jumps up on to his feet and stands. He's gonna throw up from the adrenaline if he doesn't get out of the sun soon. He looks down at Walt and sees it, <em>sees it</em>, the drawn and pale and the rings under his bloodshot eyes, <em>fuck</em>.</p>
  <p>"You never did jail time."</p>
  <p>"I killed a man, Ray."</p>
  <p>"It was self-defense and he was molesting you, retard. Now you're gonna kill yourself? Because seriously, Walt, I'm gonna push you off this goddamn roof before I let you put anything in your body again harder than iced tea."</p>
  <p>Ray puts his hand out. It's red and raw. He's done all the running he can do for one day.</p>
  <p>Walt looks up at him, like he always has. Completely broken but also completely open, for Ray. Only for Ray.</p>
  <p>There's tears in his eyes now, more snot on his face. The pigeons rustle in a flurry and then settle down.</p>
  <p>"Why do you put up with me?" he says sadly.</p>
  <p>Ray's gonna keep his hand out until Walt takes it.</p>
  <p>"I've never told a soul," Ray says. "Not a soul."</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Brad/Ray, Post-canon, Ray hits it off with Brad's dad</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brad hears a loud clatter followed by some kind of hissing noise and can't imagine what kind of trouble Ray has gotten into this late at night at his parents' house. Well, no, strike that, he can imagine it. He forgoes drying himself off from his shower, pulls on his pajama pants and stalks in the general direction of the racket until he hits the kitchen.</p><p>Only the light by the range hood is on. Ray is shoulder to shoulder with Brad's dad, who is murmuring low as Ray nods heartily. Two tall glasses stand in front of them.</p><p>As Brad draws closer, he hears his father's instruction voice: "And always over the back of a spoon, like this. That gives you a nice head on the foam. Never stir. Promise me."</p><p>"I promise, Herb," Ray says with a laugh, copying the motion. He lays his spoon down. "Can I use just regular seltzer from a bottle, or does it have to be this fancy spray contraption?"</p><p>"Regular is fine. But use the spoon."</p><p>Brad is right behind them when he speaks. Neither of them flinch. It's a Recon Marine and a Recon Marine's dad, after all. And they've both gotten used to him appearing out of nowhere in their house.</p><p>"Holy Christ, no," Brad mutters. Ray turns and leans back on the counter, all Cheshire cat grin in a white tank top. He's holding an egg cream.</p><p>The head on the foam is perfect.</p><p>"You had to teach him to make those? Like I don't have to see every conceivable slobbering mess running down his face, now it has to be a loathsome mess?"</p><p>"These are delicious!" Ray enthuses as Brad's dad takes his own off the counter and places the spoons in the sink.</p><p>"Someone has to carry on our traditions, Bradley," Brad's dad says with a wink. Ray rubs Brad's shoulder as Brad rolls his eyes. He spent months terrified that his parents would hate Ray when they finally met, between the tattoos and the mouthiness and the oh, by the way, sometimes I suck off your son.</p><p>Oh, what he wouldn't give now. He's become the gamma dog in his own childhood home.</p><p>Brad's dad gestures for him to lean down a bit, kisses his cheek, and pads off to bed. "Ray, he's thirty now, I don't have to listen to his tantrums," he calls behind him. "You signed up for it, God help you. Goodnight, boys."</p><p>Brad watches with a little affection and a little revulsion as Ray takes a long, noisy sip through his straw.</p><p>"How can you not like this?" he asks, and of course, he hasn't swallowed the damn egg cream before he speaks.</p><p>"Ray. It's milk. And soda."</p><p>"Come on, take one sip. It's my first one."</p><p>Brad shakes his head but the smile is already forming on his lips. He opens his mouth just enough for Ray to slide the straw in. They watch each other as it happens, a little promise for what might happen later.</p><p>Brad closes his eyes and takes a sip.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Brad/Ray, Cooking Under Fire!AU (College AU), The Last Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's so sad, y'all.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Explicit. Mildly dubious consent -- Brad initiates sex when he is drunk. This is from an AU that was going to be about Ray having a cooking show and wound up being all backstory about sneaking around with Brad in college. Brad is dealing with seriously internalized homophobia and he kind of sucks. I'd kind of like to scrap the original AU and make one instead where it's still in college and they get their shit together.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>This time is different, totally different. Worse and better and completely fucked up.<br/>
<br/>
It’s two in the morning and the room smells like a construction site from all the plaster and paint Ray used to cover up their last year of living and avoid a fine from student housing. He did all this while Brad was out getting shitfaced. No big -- Ray charged all the supplies to Brad’s card anyway. Payback for the last few weeks.<br/>
<br/>
The smell of the room is getting blocked out now by the smell of Brad. That too-sweet booze and summer heat smell seeping out of his pores. But in spots – his armpits, behind his ears, low on his chest where Ray rests his head as he jacks Brad’s cock – he just smells like Brad when fucking. Sweaty and dirty and good.<br/>
<br/>
And as always, surrounding Ray to the point of all judgment going right out the window.<br/>
<br/>
They haven’t kissed at all. Usually it’s hanging out, goofing around, getting high and acting like assholes, until Brad says some dipshit seductive thing that, to Ray’s embarrassed delight, works on him every time. Then it’s loads of kissing and cracking up and more kissing until they’re plastered together with sweat and both hard and then something just happens.<br/>
<br/>
This isn’t like that.<br/>
<br/>
“I’ll miss you,” Brad says into his ear, a strange and broken exhaustion in his voice.<br/>
<br/>
He’d walked in drunk and flicked the overhead off, Ray shouting in protest since he was still in the middle of packing to go home. And despite having not touched him in weeks, not discussing a goddamn thing about what had gone down, Brad was pulling him and cajoling him over to his desk, holding him there between his spread legs.<br/>
<br/>
Brad licked at his neck and shucked off Ray’s shirt, scraping nails along his arms and down his back. Ray followed, panting into it, confused as all hell, but in not such a good way this time, because it felt desperate. It felt good. It felt like Brad wanted him for real, but Brad was kind of drunk and Brad, Ray finally had to admit, was kind of an asshole.<br/>
<br/>
Brad somehow went from standing backed up against his own desk to sitting on it, wrapping his legs around Ray’s middle and starting to grind against him, their foreheads sweaty and kind of gross and pressed together in the airless room.<br/>
<br/>
Still no kissing.<br/>
<br/>
And then it had gotten to this, Brad naked on his desk, pushing his thick cock up toward Ray’s hand, cradling Ray’s head with the promise of pushing it down.<br/>
<br/>
Brad thinks he’s gonna get a blowjob, maybe something messy and fun like before, one more “whoops” they can laugh about later, or maybe never talk about again.<br/>
<br/>
Ray decides right then and there that Brad is fucking mistaken.<br/>
<br/>
“You’ll miss me?” Ray pulls his hand back, then stands up. He looks Brad over, spread out and beautiful and <em>godammit</em> he is such an asshole. “Fuck you, dude. You’re such a fucking coward.”<br/>
<br/>
“What is <em>that</em> supposed to mean?” Brad slurs out, though Ray can tell he’s sobering up.<br/>
<br/>
“You’ll miss me, homes? I’ve been right fucking here. For <em>weeks</em>. Or are you saying you’ll miss tripping and accidentally landing with your cock in my mouth?”<br/>
<br/>
“Ray—“<br/>
<br/>
“No. This is always when you want it, how you want it, if you want it. Fuck you.”<br/>
<br/>
Brad stares at Ray for a long moment and Ray figures that’s it, they’ll go to bed and not talk and tomorrow he’ll be on a bus home, probably seated next to some fat man who smells like cheese.<br/>
<br/>
Brad keeps staring. Then he straightens up slightly, his breath going deliberate and slow. He places his hands on his knees. He holds Ray’s gaze.<br/>
<br/>
“What—“ Ray starts and the look in Brad’s eyes is – calm? pleading? turned on? freaked out? Multiple choice is supposed to give you a better chance of getting the answer right. In this case, it’s not working.<br/>
<br/>
What<em> is</em> clear is this just became Ray’s show.<br/>
<br/>
“Dude,” Ray says, “you are just ridiculous.”<br/>
<br/>
He means ridiculously tall because making this work with the height difference is going to be sort of insane. When Ray says what he wants, Brad doesn't reply. He just pulls a condom out of his desk drawer and Ray already knows where to find the lube.<br/>
<br/>
And that Brad’s a ridiculous human being, fingering his ass open in front of Ray at an angle that makes it look like he might break his knuckle trying to get it in. Knowing Brad, he’d keep going anyway. Ray watches for a minute, then corrects the angle of Brad’s wrist, pushes his own slicked finger in alongside. Watching them open Brad’s ass up together feels to Ray like the most serious thing they’ve ever done.<br/>
<br/>
And that this feels ridiculously good, even though there’s still no kissing, even though Ray’s jeans are barely down past his hips, his cock pulled straight through the opening in his boxers. Their hands are entwined tightly, resting up on Brad’s shoulders, as if one of them letting go would mean they’ll both fall down the mountain. Their eyes stay locked, though, as Ray pushes inside of Brad with one long even stroke that makes Ray, for once, go quiet, and Brad, for once, call out in need.<br/>
<br/>
And Brad, right then, finally brave and so warm and giving around Ray’s cock, clearly close, clearly so gone on this. Brad, ridiculously beautiful.<br/>
<br/>
And a bunch of other shit like that, but there’s no time left to say it, after this.<br/>
<br/>
Because after this, they’re done.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Brad/Ray, Cooking Under Fire! AU (College AU), The First Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Explicit. They make pot brownies and do it. Slightly dubious consent as they're both high but they're both very into it and want it to happen. Ray loses time during sex but isn't bothered by it. Mild internalized homophobia, mainly from Brad.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took two pot brownies and an hour, but Brad got high as all fuck off of Ray's test batch.</p><p>Now it's three a.m. and the whole hall is quiet except for AC/DC blasting in their room. Ray insisted on turning off The Cure. Listening to The Cure when you’re stoned is an iffy proposition at best, and Brad’s not just stoned but freshly dumped. Again.</p><p>“Thank Non-Existent God you bought other food,” Brad says, and stuffs a fistful of Doritos into his mouth. “You’re a fucking genius."</p><p>“Yeah. I learned that the hard way, homes.” Ray hops up to sit on Brad’s empty desk. He’s buzzed, but not as much as Brad. “The last thing you need when you eat pot brownies is more pot brownies. Vicious fucking cycle.”</p><p>Brad runs his hands up over his face and then down the back of his head, stretches his arms. He’s getting ready for takeoff again. “This is fascinating,” he says, eyeing Ray. “You talk just as much on weed, but I’m enjoying it more. Door.”</p><p>Ray hops down from the desk and opens the door just as Brad runs at it. His splays his arms out to his sides and flies down the hallway, sliding in his tube socks. He turns at the far end, then runs back into the room. Ray shudders with quiet laughter and shuts the door again. Brad continues to pretend-fly around the room in tight circles.</p><p>Ray takes a sip of Mountain Dew. “Have you ever smoked grass before, man? I thought you were a teenage delinquent before they shipped your ass to military school.”</p><p>Brad shakes his head, jumps up onto Ray’s bed and then jumps back down. “My drugs of choice were hard alcohol and vandalism.” Brad comes in for a landing, falling to his knees on his own bed, which is just a mattress on the floor. He kneels there for a moment, then breaks into a wide grin and falls flat on his face.</p><p>“What about coke?” Ray goes and sits next to Brad’s head and sticks the straw in his face when Brad turns toward him. Brad takes a short sip of soda.</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>Ray drains the can. “Shrooms? Shrooms are fucking awesome.”</p><p>“You really are a fucking polyamorous bead-wearing hippie aren’t you?” Brad asks fondly. He moves over on the narrow mattress so Ray can collapse next to him. “Are You Ready” is blaring now.</p><p>“It’s better than being a libertarian.” Ray rubs his eyes. He feels pleasantly fuzzy. “As far as I can tell you’re an anarchist who likes money.”</p><p>“That’s about the size of it.” Brad rolls over to face Ray. His teeth are really shiny. “Are you bouncing the bed?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Huh.” Jesus, his smile is dazzling. Ray feels like his arm is purring. It takes him a minute to realize Brad is stroking it with the back of his hand “Am I?”</p><p>“Uh, no.” Ray opens his mouth again to be outraged but it doesn’t happen. Instead he moves closer to Brad, lays one leg over his. Holy fuck. Ray grins.</p><p>“I feel like it’s moving,” Brad says, sliding his hands under Ray’s t-shirt now. “And my hands are stretching. It’s nice.” He squints at Ray curiously. “Am I touching you?”</p><p>“Uh, yeah.”</p><p>“I thought so.” Brad murmurs this so close to Ray’s mouth that it’s tough to say where the comment ends and the kissing starts. But after the brush of lips comes the velvet push of Brad’s tongue and then it’s slow and hot and fierce. They wrap their legs around each other. Ray strokes Brad’s back beneath his shirt and Brad thumbs at Ray's nipples, nips at his lower lip. Ray’s brain function powers down and he gets totally fucking lost in Brad’s smiling kisses.</p><p>After a few hours or possibly a few minutes, Brad pulls back. He’s rolling his hips into Ray’s, sinuously. He gets his hands onto the top button of Ray’s fly. “This is an orgiastic plot, isn’t it?” he mutters in the direction of Ray’s hardening cock.</p><p>Ray snickers and says “If I didn’t know that you’re always this paranoid, I might be worried.”</p><p>“Don’t get me wrong, your evil plan is brilliant,” he says. The guitars are soaring. The bedsheets are humming. Brad is undoing his jeans and everything feels like a warm bath.</p><p>He moans as Brad’s hand makes contact with his naked cock. Brad moans at the same time. Holy fuck.</p><p>“You’re not going to believe this,” Ray says, pushing up, rubbing his thumb over Brad’s cheek, “but I think we should shut up now.”</p><p>Ray’s had sex high before. That doesn’t mean he’s entirely prepared for the additional clusterfuck of (1) It’s Brad; (2) Brad’s a dude. With a penis; (3) time keeps stretching out and then snapping back into place like an overtaxed rubber band.</p><p>Brad’s hand moves from the base of his cock to the tip. Then it’s like someone flipped a few pages forward in the book. Suddenly Ray is naked from the waist down. Brad stands by Ray’s bed, inspecting the mattress.</p><p>“Your bed’s too fucking small, too,” Brad says. He puts one foot on the flimsy metal bed frame.</p><p>“That is so like you, man,” Ray says. “Blame it on the standardized furniture and not on your mutant genetics of unknown origin.” Ray pulls off his t-shirt and tosses it aside, jerks himself every few beats to keep his cock with the program.</p><p>Brad drags Ray’s mattress off the frame in two hard pulls and sets it next to his own. He goes into his desk drawer, which tends to produce all kinds of MacGyver shit, and in a couple of minutes he’s lashed the mattresses together.</p><p>“See? This is better.” Brad looks at Ray as he says this and a little Ray’s naked light bulb flicks on in his eyes. Brad kneels back on the now-double bed he’s rigged up and throws off his flannel shirt, shucks his t-shirt. His excitement is palpable.</p><p>Then there’s that little matter of the colors pulsing around him.</p><p>After Brad gets his jeans off he crawls over to Ray in his briefs. Brad rubs his nose in Ray’s hair, traces Ray’s eyebrows with his fingers and dives back onto his mouth.</p><p>“Have you noticed,” Brad says, the next time they part, “that when we kiss, time goes slower?” The sheets are bunched and sliding beneath Ray as he moves in Brad’s hand. The music stopped a while ago.</p><p>“I totally have,” Ray says. How cool is that? Brad noticed it, too.</p><p>“Try to remember that for later. It could come in handy.”</p><p>Then Brad mutters “Hello, stars,” and kisses each of Ray’s tattoos wetly, one at a time. Brad’s arm is around Ray’s shoulder’s, cradling him, and Brad is sucking at him, grinding against him.</p><p>Time switches off again.</p><p>When it comes back on, Ray is coming like shattered glass, his cock pumping in Brad’s hand. Holy shit, those noises are coming out of his mouth. It's delicious and hot. It’s fucking endless is what it is.</p><p>When the shatter calms down to a shimmer, Ray sees Brad’s face. Brad might be in shock.</p><p>“Did you?” Ray asks. He can’t imagine how he would have missed that.</p><p>“No,” Brad rasps out, his erection still pushing on Ray’s thigh. “But I felt it when you did. Holy fuck, Ray, I felt you coming in my body.“</p><p>It’s possible Ray has never been this turned on and he’s the one who just came his balls off.</p><p>Ray grabs a loose edge of the sheets, selfishly hoping it’s the one that belongs to Brad, and quickly wipes himself. He takes Brad’s hand and swishes at it like he’s cleaning a counter with a rag. Then he grabs Brad’s shoulders and rolls them both so Brad is on top of him.</p><p>“Off, off,” he mutters, tugging at Brad’s briefs. Brad kicks one foot on the mattress until the briefs finally fall from his ankle.</p><p>Brad's cock is huge and kind of purple and he looks thrilled and broken. Ray slides his hand in to get Brad nestled in the crease where Ray's thigh meets his groin. He wraps his legs around Brad.</p><p>“Come on, come the fuck on,” Ray says, his hands on Brad’s ass, pushing at him. Brad goes for it, thrusting hard, sweat dripping off of his hair onto the mattress and Ray’s shoulder. Ray takes Brad’s wide nipple into his mouth. He sucks hard. Brad moans louder.</p><p>“Now,” Brad says. “Fuck,” he yells and Ray keeps his mouth latched on at first, feels Brad’s chest heaving against his lips. Then he flops back onto the mattress to watch as Brad rolls his hips rhythmically and his cock shoots streams of come onto Ray, hot and wet.</p><p>When his eyes open, he’s flushed and incredulous.</p><p>“What the fuck?” he says.</p><p>Ray starts to laugh, plastered with sweat and come to his fucking roommate. Their whole floor is probably awake now, listening in horror or lust to their sex romp.</p><p>A few second later, Brad starts laughing, too.</p><p>When they finally pass out, the sun is coming up and the birds outside their dorm are heralding that fact.</p><p>Prior to that there was more kissing and a highly entertaining round of oral sex. Then Ray got to enjoy the spectacle of Brad slowly mutating back into his normal condescending self.</p><p>Ray is impressed with a whole lot of shit. The time effect of that pot, for one thing. Brad’s stamina, tongue and hands, for another.</p><p>Ray is especially impressed with himself. He came twice, got the Iceman to turn into a quivering mess--admittedly with the aid of THC-infused butter--and is not freaking out about the gay thing nearly as much as he could be. Plus, the brownies work.</p><p>They're tangled up on the bed, hands resting on each others' bodies but not moving.</p><p>“You have a cool nose,” Brad murmurs. “You live in my room.”</p><p>“Next time, have one brownie and wait longer. Two really fucks you up,” Ray says in response. This right-in-between Brad is fun. He’s sardonic again and not all at-one with everything, but still happier, more at peace. Maybe he should try Quaaludes.</p><p>Brad pulls up on the sheets and tries to get them untangled enough to cover them both. “New plan. We get stoned every day and fuck around. No need for unfaithful girlfriends.”</p><p>“Or classes,” Ray supplies. It’s getting hard to keep his eyes open. Brad tosses some of the sheet over Ray’s shoulder.</p><p>“I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner.”</p><p>“It’s brilliant, Brad,” Ray says, and pauses to yawn with his mouth closed. No need to be rude. “You’re a fucking genius.”</p><p>“I am, right?” Brad looks intently at Ray. His eyes are kind of bloodshot and his face looks scuffed up. “It’s not just me.”</p><p>Ray shakes his head and tries to look sincere. He pats Brad’s shoulder, then closes his eyes. “No.”</p><p>Ray leans in and kisses Brad a few more times. Their lips stay soft, their tongues take turns swiping gently inside.</p><p>Brad falls asleep first, his tongue still in Ray’s mouth.</p><p>The next day is fucking weird.</p><p>Ray comes to, unsure of why he’s on the floor. Brad’s first words to him, glaring from where he’s sitting fully dressed in the corner, are “Well, that was pretty gay.”</p><p>“Yeah, Brad,” Ray says, blinking hard, piecing it together. He put on some boxers before passing out, thank Christ. “Once you’re fucking a guy it’s safe to say you’ve reached maximum gayness.</p><p>“We didn’t fuck,” Brad says bluntly. Then, “Did we fuck?”</p><p>“No.” Ray locates his t-shirt on the floor and reaches over to get it without losing the sheet. “So we were more at like level nine gayness.”</p><p>“Ray,” Brad says with a strong side of warning. He closes his eyes and knocks his head back against the wall. “Please shut up.”</p><p>Ray struggles to his feet and looks around for last night’s jeans. They got flung half-into the wastebasket. He plucks them out and slides into them.</p><p>“I’m fucking starving,” he says. “Want go up to the dining hall?”</p><p>“No,” Brad says. He’s motionless. Ray waits but Brad stays quiet. Shit, Ray thinks. Oh well. He grabs his hoodie off his desk chair.</p><p>“It’s the afternoon,” Brad mutters. Ray turns, a little hopeful. Brad exhales and then gracefully stands. “They’re probably closed.” He grabs his wallet and keys from on top of his desk. “Let’s skip class and go to Carmichael’s. I’ll pay but I choose what to put on the jukebox.”</p><p>Brad’s eighties proclivities have two faces – are-you-ready-to-rock and sappy power ballads. Hung-over Brad is usually sappy power ballad Brad.</p><p>Ray shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. First five songs.”</p><p>“First eight songs.” Brad pockets the wallet and tosses his keys to Ray. “You drive. My brain feels singed.”</p><p>Ray mock-gasps, his mouth hanging open. “You’re letting me drive your car? Are we dating now?”</p><p>“Ray, please,” Brad says, getting on a windbreaker, his limbs punching the air. “Shut the fuck up. My head hurts, my dick fucking hurts – shut up – and given that I even hated the morning-after shit with Allie, I deserve a fucking medal right now.”</p><p>Ray purses his lips. They’re gonna be fine. Eventually.</p><p>"Can I drive your bike?"</p><p>"Fuck, no."</p><p>“You’re gonna take those magic ninja ropes off my mattress later, right?”</p><p>Ray opens the door and heads out. Brad follows behind, answering.</p><p>“Yeah, I thought that was me. You can’t even tie a good knot on your shoe.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Brad/Ray, Cooking Under Fire! AU (College AU), The Morning After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>“That’s disgusting, Person.” Brad gestures to Ray’s plate with his own fork, which has a piece of pancake speared to it. Ray continues to double-fist condiments onto his sunny-side up eggs and hash browns, ketchup pouring suddenly fast while dots of Tabasco fly everywhere.<br/><br/>“And that’s not?” Ray raises his eyebrows and juts his chin at Brad’s plate, which is filled to the fucking rim with that fake syrup. When Brad dips his pancake back in, the syrup swells upward, threatening to overflow. <br/><br/>“I have a system,” Brad says, chewing.<br/><br/>“Of course you do.” Ray puts the two bottles down, leaving them both uncapped, and smashes the yolks in. Brad watches Ray from beneath his weighted, superioristic – if that’s not a word well it damn well should be – brow. Ray dips a wedge of potato into the center of the ketchup and Tabasco-soaked, runny egg, and moves it, dripping and revolting, up to his mouth. He smiles at Brad the whole time.<br/><br/>They’re up to “Any Way You Want It,” on the little jukebox mounted to their booth. Brad’s fourth song. Four more to go and Ray can liberate the poor jukebox, maybe put on something from this century.<br/><br/>The waitress shuffles over and refills both their coffee cups. She’s not remotely interested in them, but the place is empty enough that she’s paying attention to what they need, which is nice.<br/><br/>Brad picks another piece of bacon off the plate they’re sharing, which barely fits in the middle of the table. It’s bacon because Brad got quickly fed up with trying to order sausage and Ray laughing hysterically the first three times Brad tried to say “And we’ll split a plate of pork sausage.”<br/><br/>One, two, the waitress is three paces from the table and Brad has crumpled half a slice of bacon into his mouth when Ray lets the first salvo rip.<br/><br/>“So penises are really crazy, right?”<br/><br/>Brad does not spit out his bacon, nor does he choke. He <em>does</em> stab himself in the tongue with his fork.<br/><br/>“I mean, yours is, anyway,” Ray continues, perky as all fuck while Brad’s fork clatters to the table and he grabs at his jaw. “It’s really fucking purple. And big. I think. I don’t have much to compare it with. I’m sure it’s impressive, don’t be concerned or anything.”<br/><br/>Brad gets his shit together enough to throw a piece of bacon at Ray’s head. “That’s from your half,” he says. Pissy bastard. He starts sawing at his pancakes again. The three-songs-Journey-medley-from-hell ends and motherfucking “Unskinny Bop” starts playing.<br/><br/>“I’m never coming here with you again,” Ray says, rolling his eyes. He takes a sip of his coffee. It’s good in that bad diner way.<br/><br/>“You know, you complain a lot less when I’m sucking you to a screaming orgasm,” Brad says quietly.<br/><br/>Ray doesn’t spit the coffee so much as it falls from his open mouth. Onto his plate.<br/><br/>“<em>You fucked up my eggs</em>,” Ray hisses, the last droplets of coffee spluttering madly off his lips.<br/><br/>Brad leans back and starts picking napkins out of the dispenser one by one. He smiles. Ray has to admit, even now, it’s really a great smile.<br/><br/>“I like this game,” Brad says, handing a small pile of napkins to Ray, who swipes them from his hand. He drapes his arms across the back of his vinyl seat. Ray can see the hair on his arms, the muscle twisting beneath his skin. “Your turn.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Nate + Doc, Squatterpunk!AU (OYOOT), the moment before Nate's entrance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Mentions of overdose, substance use</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One thing Nate is certain of: he never wants to see sympathy cross Doc Bryan's features again. It's a bad look on him and it means bad things.<br/><br/>"Go home, LT," Doc says. He rubs a hand across Nate's back over his shirt, from side to side, while Nate just stares into space.<br/><br/>"Don't call me that here," he mumbles. His voice sounds high to him, like a child.<br/><br/>"Nate," Doc says, and his hand keeps moving, like he can pull old grief from the muscles and keep new grief from settling in. "This is a risk, in this job. He was a sweet kid and he liked you. But he was an addict, Nate, and psychotic. I'm sorry."<br/><br/>"Seventeen. Like Walt."<br/><br/>"Go home. And don't come in this week. When the week's up we should talk about whether you should still be here."<br/><br/>The anger that wells up in him at that -- he knows not to throw it at Doc. It'll end up in a fistfight, and Doc won't punch back, because Nate's grieving for two kids right now. He agrees to go. He goes.<br/><br/>The door to the needle exchange hits the wall when he pushes it open and he doesn't even do it hard. The noise is as bad as always, like a blown tire.<br/><br/>Nate walks the ten blocks home, wishing he had an undershirt on beneath his work shirt because it's hot enough to boil in.<br/><br/>That building comes up on his right and he tries not to look but he does. The door is boarded up. He could pry the boards off. He could kick a window in, crawl through with minor bleeding, and then what? Then what. He wants in there but he can't. Not yet. Not this way.<br/><br/>Instead he goes home. A quarter of a bottle in to the scotch and stripped down to nearly nothing, he needs air, needs sky, even if it's as hot and wet out there as it is in here. Even if Pam is dead and now Seth, that sweet kid, trying to self-medicate his way off heroin with two blunts a day and prayers to his dead grandparents. The even ifs swell up to Craig and Walt and Ray and himself and the city and the dead and the helpless until he doesn't even know what's wrong anymore.<br/><br/>Nate has the presence of mind to go up the stairs with the bottle before he gets too drunk to make the climb. Sitting up on the edge of the squat roof, he gets halfway through the bottle. Stops drinking and goes through the lyrics of every Talib Kweli song he can think of. He's moving on to Public Enemy when he hears Tony's voice, another soul, still here, coming up, not lost.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Brad/Nate, Piercing!AU, The Trees Were All Decked Out in Their Best Fall Colors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Some of the leaves by Brad's feet are a purple that borders on black, like the night sky in California when the sun has just given up. Mottled gold and brown ones are scattered among them. They remind him of tiger's eye.<br/><br/>He notices colors more now, since he started designing with stones. He notices everything more now, looks around at the world. Nate did that.<br/><br/>Nate is kneeling on the ground with the camera, getting a shot of the trees that arc into each other along the path. It's early morning. They'll head back to the B&amp;B, pick up some coffee for the road and then drive over to his aunt's house for brunch with everyone.<br/><br/>Brad puts his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and watches Nate get back to his feet, depositing the camera back into the case that hangs off a cord around his neck.<br/><br/>"Kiss me," Brad says. The leaves crackle beneath Nate's feet as he takes the last step left between them.<br/><br/>"Pushy," he says. His mouth opens around his grin just as he meets Brad's lips. Warm against the cold air. Like the first time. Nate's tongue pauses and then pushes in more, the stud in the center clicking against Brad's. He pulls back and kisses Brad's cheekbone softly.<br/><br/>"Pushy," Brad repeats. "Remind you of anyone?"<br/><br/>Nate smiles but looks down at his watch. "We should start walking back."<br/><br/>"Okay," Brad says, but he doesn't move. Instead he takes a breath and says, "You know, I'm thinking of getting more ink."<br/><br/>Nate laughs. "Where? I think you're running out of skin."<br/><br/>He can't look up for this part. Instead, Brad holds out his left hand, weathered and work-rough as it is, something Nate says he loves.<br/><br/>"Here," he says, caressing his own ring finger in a clear, clean line.<br/><br/>Nate's lips push up against his again, Nate's head ducking down beneath Brad's to get at him, to pull him into a kiss, fierce with love.<br/><br/>Brad's left hand slides easily into Nate's hair. The rings don't seem so heavy in his right now, tucked inside his jacket pocket.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Brad/Nate, HighSchool! AU, First time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This is from a dead WIP. Brad tutors Nate in chemistry and falls for him. Explicit, underage, internalized homophobia (man, I do this to Brad a lot).</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When this thing started with Nate, two things became clear pretty quickly. The first was that he had better get Nate’s chemistry grade up fast. Taking money from Nate’s parents was getting increasingly weird when the tutoring sessions ended as make-out sessions.<br/>
<br/>
The second thing is that what Brad was most concerned about – kissing a guy and everything after that – has turned out to be the easy part.<br/>
<br/>
Brad’s never kissed a guy before Nate. Not without it involving Spin the Bottle. Or the one time he got drunk on Schnapps at Q-Tip’s winter break holiday extravaganza. And he wouldn’t even know about that without photographic evidence.<br/>
<br/>
Or the one time with Walt, when Walt thought he might be into guys, specifically Ray, but was completely freaked out about it, so Brad agreed to be the test case.<br/>
<br/>
Okay, maybe never is an overstatement.<br/>
<br/>
Nate comes over the Saturday before midterms start. Brad has his own tests to study for, but he sets Nate up with water, snacks, flash cards and a copy of his own midterm from the previous year – just the questions. His parents are out for most of the day, having left them to it.<br/>
<br/>
It’s a little awkward, being alone in the place where Brad sleeps and jerks off and what have you. But this is important, so they buckle down. Nate sits at Brad’s desk, after adjusting the office chair up a notch, but just a notch. He asks Brad if he can rearrange some things – the stapler, the angle of the lamp – and Brad says sure even though with almost anyone else the very idea would make him grind his teeth.<br/>
<br/>
Every now and then, Brad glances over at the back of Nate’s head, at Nate’s hand writing essays, his wrist flicking forward to get a look at his watch. He wonders if Nate has glanced over at his bed, at Brad in it, laptop propped on his knees while he works on his paper on the use of time in narrative.<br/>
<br/>
They are so diligent and oh, so good. Still, the air thickens with what’s coming next.<br/>
<br/>
When he’s done, Nate sits quietly at Brad’s desk when he’s done for about a half hour. He checks his own answers against the sheet Brad gives him and murmurs with quiet pride that he got an 85. Then he’s quiet again and pages gently through Henry V, making a note here and there with one of Brad’s red pens.<br/>
<br/>
Brad pushes through the end of page seven of his essay, then looks back over the outline for the rest. After making a couple of changes, he sets the laptop to ‘sleep’ and closes it, sets it down on the floor beside his bed.<br/>
<br/>
“Hey,” he says. Nate stills and sets down Henry V.<br/>
<br/>
Brad pats the space on the bed beside him.<br/>
<br/>
Study break is kissing. It feels like review, territory they’ve covered over the last week whenever a moment could be grabbed to do it. Brad actually sets his mother’s kitchen timer to five minutes before pressing his lips to Nate’s, because they do have work to do.<br/>
<br/>
When it goes off, he resets it for five minutes again, then kisses the laughter out of Nate’s mouth.<br/>
<br/>
By the time it goes off again, Brad has Nate cradled in his lap, bare feet up on the bed beside his knees. He keeps his mouth affixed to Nate’s neck as he slaps his hand around the bed and then the nightstand, finds the timer, and hurls it across the room.<br/>
<br/>
It keeps going off while he unzips Nate’s jeans.<br/>
<br/>
Nate’s obviously looking right at Brad’s face, but it’s too much for Brad to look him in the eye. It’s impossible to do anything but concentrate on one small task, the zipper moving down, pinched between his thumb and forefinger.<br/>
<br/>
Nate’s white briefs are soft and warm. Then definitely damp at the head of his dick, when Brad puts his hand there for the first time.<br/>
<br/>
Brad has to clutch Nate tighter with his free hand when Nate presses his face into Brad’s shoulder and makes the sexiest fucking sound ever. And they still have all their clothes on.<br/>
<br/>
“No, come here,” Brad whispers against Nate’s cheek. Nate turns back and Brad somehow manages to man the fuck up and look at him. Nate looks so intent, so beautiful, like Brad’s touch is something important or amazing.<br/>
<br/>
How can he possibly look away from that anymore?<br/>
<br/>
“I want to kiss you while I do this,” he says. He feels around with a single finger for the opening in Nate’s shorts, finds it and then eases his hand in. He feels Nate’s dick, hot at the tip and moistened with pre-come. “While—“ and Brad’s own dick jumps along with his stomach and his heart because this is just fucking incredible; Nate in his arms, getting to do this to him—“while your dick is in my hand.”<br/>
<br/>
Nate’s lips hit his hard, tongue swiping in and sucking. A moan sneaks into Brad’s mouth when his hand curls around Nate’s dick. He moves down the shaft, still kissing, when Nate peels away from Brad’s lips with a jerk and presses his face to Brad’s chest, keening.<br/>
<br/>
Brad just watches Nate’s dick, sticking out from his underwear, watches it move in and out of his fist. It seems so intimate, more so than fucking, because he can see everything.<br/>
<br/>
This would be better for Nate with oil. Or lube. But Brad doesn’t own any lube and the baby oil he has is across the room in the desk drawer, because, well, internet porn.<br/>
<br/>
Nate turns slightly in Brad’s lap and starts to undo his fly.<br/>
<br/>
“Stop,” Brad admonishes, but he keeps stroking Nate. “I can’t do this while you do that. After.”<br/>
<br/>
Nate swivels back, looking up at Brad. His right hand clutches at Brad’s hip while his left roams restlessly over his own chest. Brad can see the shades of hazel and brown mixed in with the vibrant green of Nate’s eyes. “Promise?”<br/>
<br/>
Brad pushes his hand down to the base of Nate’s cock and curls his fingers around Nate’s balls. He gives a gentle squeeze. “You think I’d stop you?<br/>
<br/>
Nate smiles and arches up. “Guess not,” he grits out, and then Brad knows enough to go back to jerking him firm and steady, with no more words.<br/>
<br/>
As it turns out, touching Nate is the easy part. It’s everything else that’s difficult.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Brad/Nate, Riley!verse (they're parents), Nate catches Brad rapping in the shower</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's kid fic, even though the kid is 17.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I know you’re there, Nate.”<br/><br/>“Sorry, I didn’t want to embarrass you.”<br/><br/>“You can take the man out of Recon. . .”<br/><br/>“Yeah. Who was that?”<br/><br/>“Quantum.”<br/><br/>“Riley’s been playing that, right?”<br/><br/>“Yeah. Diana from work mentioned him to me, too. He’s a protégée of that guy you like, from the group with the girl’s name. “<br/><br/>“Tanya Morgan? You mean Donwill?”<br/><br/>“Yeah.”<br/><br/>“Oh, I didn’t know that. What do you like about him?”<br/><br/>Brad shakes his head. His smile looks different now, his teeth a stark contrast with his dark beard.<br/><br/>“I can’t talk about it the way you do. I don’t know when the first turntable scratch happened or how crunk demonstrates the cultural zeitgeist . . .”<br/><br/>Oh God, he thought they were past this shit. “I don’t care. Tell me what you like about it.”<br/><br/>Nate didn’t really understand this particular conundrum of Brad's until they were together for a while. He’d first known him as a Marine, one of his men, and Brad was exceptional in every situation. There was always a sharp focus that cut through whatever else Brad was feeling, more so than anyone else in Bravo 2. He got the job done.<br/><br/>But in the face of personal pain or loss, Brad still looks like most people do when a bomb goes off.<br/><br/>Brad draws his head down to watch Nate soap his chest, giving himself the momentary illusion of a double chin, something that will probably never happen for real. He relaxes somewhat into the touch.<br/><br/>“I like the synthesizers. Very eighties.”<br/><br/>“That I can understand.”<br/><br/>“I like his rhythms. They’re solid. Strong. But not boring.”<br/><br/>Nate smiles.<br/><br/>“I like the way he talks. Complex. But even a grunt like me can follow it.”<br/><br/>Nate taps Brad’s shoulder and Brad easily follows the request to turn around. As he soaps Brad’s back, Nate considers whether to acknowledge what lies beneath this conversation.<br/><br/>“You did fine in there.”<br/><br/>“No, I didn’t. I was my own worst nightmare: a hypocritical, uninformed, bleeding-heart civilian.”<br/><br/>“You sounded like a parent.”<br/><br/>Brad lets out a breath and leans forward against the tile, resting his palms by his head. Letting go.<br/><br/>“What do we do if signs up?”<br/><br/>“I don’t think he will. But if he does, we’ll do what our parents did. Support him and hate it. Plus, it gives him an advantage. We both went through this. We can help him.”<br/><br/>“He’s still amazing.”<br/><br/>“He’s not the only one.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Brad/Nate + Brad's Family, Post-canon, Meet Me After The World with the Shivers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="">
  <p>Nate doesn’t spend one minute of Brad’s third tour of Iraq on romantic bullshit.</p>
  <p>He doesn’t wonder if they’re thinking of each other at the same minute, because Brad is hopefully not thinking about him at all. He should spend his minutes getting through the minutes, hyper-aware of his surroundings, and Nate gets that. He’s been there.</p>
  <p>And even without the time difference, Nate knows for certain they are not sharing one sky, or one moon, or any of that. It’s an altogether different sky. He tries to picture Brad in daylight, in civilian life, in slacks and t-shirts. Young and rested.</p>
  <p>Not under that sky. Not that.</p>
  <p>He allows himself a few pussy thoughts here and there, however, as he continues to function as one half of Brad-and-Nate when he sees Brad’s family. After passing the broccoli across the dinner table on a Sunday night. A few weeks later, on a day trip to the beach, after giving up on any pretense of continuing the kids’ surfing lessons in Brad’s absence and doing underwater handstands instead, to everyone’s delight.</p>
  <p>“I’ll make sure to tell my son you’re the cooler uncle now,” Brad’s mother says, smiling at him over her paperback.</p>
  <p>“Oh, I will, too,” Nate says. He grins and tries to shake the water out of his left ear.</p>
  <p>He sits on his little canvas beach chair or right in the grass in the backyard afterward and thinks <em>This is who you’re from, where you’re from. I’m here now. You’ll come home to this</em>.</p>
  <p>Really, there’s nothing romantic about it. It’s more like a command.</p>
  <p>He makes sure to keep his eyes closed when he thinks these things, disregarding the sky.</p>
</div><p>Brad does come home to this, again, and a few weeks later it’s Fourth of July already. Nate’s come to the Oceanside fireworks display for the last two years without Brad (deployment, then training), choosing it over barbeque invitations or visiting his parents in Baltimore.<br/><br/>They slowly caravan along the boardwalk with Brad’s family. His parents run into someone they know about every fifty paces. One of Brad’s sisters, Eve, is eight months pregnant now and doing her best in the heat.<br/><br/>Brad’s hair is just past regulation but he runs his hand through it a lot, like it’s a nuisance. He’s still and silent for most of the day, nodding and forcing smiles at his parents’ friends’ small talk and volunteering for anything that will take him away from the crowds, from procuring twelve hot dogs to escorting his sister to every ladies’ room they pass.<br/><br/>When they settle in on the boardwalk to wait, he doesn’t say much and neither does Nate. They eat the picnic they brought and then Brad disappears for forty-five minutes, returning with miraculously un-melted ice cream and a giant lemonade for Eve. The kids sit on the boardwalk with their legs dangling off the railing, with the rest of the group in the folding chairs they humped with them all day, or standing with the kids.<br/><br/>The fireworks start just a few minutes late with a faint sizzle, then more of them. Thin red trails push across the sky and then shatter, red sparks falling into the ocean. Nate thinks this must seem ridiculous to Brad, this sad approximation of chaos. It’s chaos he needs, chaos that renders him still and focused. He’s at his best in it.<br/><br/>Nate glances over at Brad, who is not watching the sky at all. Eve has gotten off her beach chair to stretch and Brad has moved over to give her room at the railing. Brad is now completely focused on his sister’s stomach and the elbow or foot or whatever that is pushing out from within.<br/><br/>“Jesus, it looks like a shark.” Brad nearly shouts it to be heard over the fat white bursts now booming in the sky in front of them.<br/><br/>“<em>She</em> looks like a shark.”<br/><br/>Brad bows his head slightly – when he was a kid he used to say “Yes, your majesty.” The obnoxious bowing is kind of a compromise.<br/><br/>“She.”<br/><br/>Brad never hesitated in the past to describe his sisters’ other two kids in-utero as aliens and his sisters as pods. He’s helped them to their feet when they were pregnant, and not said the word “chicken” so they wouldn’t hurl in the car and shit like that, but that’s about it.<br/><br/>The three of them are very still as all of greater San Diego <em>oohs</em> and <em>ahhs</em> around them at the little man-made sparks. Brad’s sister takes his left hand off the railing they’re leaning against and slowly leads it to her stomach. Brad lets her. As she pushes his hand this way and that, searching for the little shark, Brad winds his other hand around Nate’s waist and strokes his thumb deliberately below his ribcage.<br/><br/>There’s no smile on his lips, just an open look of concentration as he waits for it, proof of life and the family continuing on. Whatever he might be feeling he pours into Nate through the palm of his other hand, holding him close like he hasn’t ever in public before.<br/><br/>Nate feels the flat of Brad’s hand against him as his diaphragm expands and contracts with each breath of sea air.<br/><br/>None of them are looking at the sky.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Brad/Nate, Poke, Gina, Riley!Verse, First Ficlet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>With love to Lupe Fiasco</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>Riley is not quite up to sitting up without being propped, so Nate has him between his feet, leaning back on his legs. He can’t see Riley’s face, but he doesn’t have to. Gina, Elana and Catherine are reflecting his wide eyes and dopey grin right back to him. The three of them sit cross-legged on the floor, in front of Nate and Riley, singing “Abrelas, cierralas, abrelas, cierrralas,” opening and shutting their palms like little doors in time to the words.</p>
  <p>Riley’s arms start motoring in circles as the girls creep and crawl their fingers toward him, still singing in Spanish. He lets out a long squeak and Catherine cracks up, leaning against her mother’s side, while Gina and Elana finish the song.</p>
  <p>“Will you teach me that?” Nate says to Gina. “I know it in English but he seems to love it in Spanish.”</p>
  <p>“I think the variable is the three beautiful ladies, Nate, not the language.” Brad says.</p>
  <p>“Yep, your kid is definitely straight, LT.” Poke replies. Nate has to laugh. Given how Riley’s head tends to snap around at the sight of at a good-looking adult female rear end, at six months of age, Nate would have to agree.</p>
  <p>Nate pushes his fingers into Riley’s still-winding fists, letting Riley yank his hands around like they’re conducting an orchestra together. Brad and Poke are sitting on the sofa having very strong coffee. Gina is insistent on not cracking the beer open around the kids until sundown.</p>
  <p>“I’ll teach you that, Nate, it’s easy,” Gina says. She gets up on her knees and holds her hands out to Riley. Nate helps to ease him into her arms. As she sits back down on the rug, the two girls lean in to get a better look at him. Elana carefully runs her hand through his dark curls. Riley bats at the stripes on Gina’s shirt, occasionally distracted by his own fingers.</p>
  <p>“Seriously,” Nate says, stretching out his legs. “I’m out of songs to sing to him. I’m pulling stuff out of my – out of the air that I didn’t even know I knew. Old commercials, the theme from ‘Shaft’. It’s getting disturbing.”</p>
  <p>“I’m not running out of songs,” Brad says, looking right at Poke.</p>
  <p>“Yeah, I don’t count the Barry Manilow catalog as ‘songs,’ Brad,” Nate responds and Poke starts in on a wheezing laugh.</p>
  <p>“I’m pretty sure the military tortured Noriega with them,” Gina chimes in, smoothing a finger over Riley’s cheek.</p>
  <p>“Better than Nate’s music,” Brad says with an exaggerated shrug. Just then Riley does a near-backbend in Gina’s hands and she turns him around so he can see Nate is still there. He starts to whimper.</p>
  <p>She says “OK, you can go to Daddy,” just as Nate reaches forward, his whole face lit up, and says “Hey, sweetheart. Here you go.”</p>
  <p>As he settles Riley back in his arms, pulling his blue shirt’s sleeves back down on his little wrists, Nate hears Poke mutter, “You gotta check that, Brad. Tupac was a poet.”</p>
  <p>The rap thing has been an issue. Brad tried, or at least he purports that he did. But, as he puts it, the stuff that didn’t start with gunshots or sirens instead starts with atonal violins and saxophones, leading to atonal harmonies, or lyrics about bitches, and he has yet to get it and doesn’t think he ever will. And for some reason, he thinks it’s okay for Riley to hear songs about cherry pie and women pouring sugar on old British men, but hip-hop, not so much.</p>
  <p>Brad does "like the Coolio song from the movie about the underprivileged high school kids." This is usually the point in the conversation where Nate starts rubbing his face. He is gratified, when they all go out to dinner that night at a local burger joint, that when Brad hits that particular plot point, Poke actually appears nauseous.</p>
  <p>The restaurant has the Dodgers-Padres game on the three televisions mounted over the bar. The grownups watch idly, Poke talking smack to Brad and Nate about the team he got to leave behind when he went back to L.A., while the girls devour their free sundaes. Riley is comfortably passed out against Brad’s chest, already dressed in a footie with spaceships flying all over it.</p>
  <p>The bar crowd breaks into an unending roar when the Dodgers’ batter grounds into what looks like it will be a inning-ending double play.</p>
  <p>“No, no, come on.” To his credit, Poke whispers this at the Dodgers between gritted teeth, but Riley’s already been frightened awake and he lets out a startled wail.</p>
  <p>Brad runs through the list. He shushes, offers the bottle, rocks Riley back and forth while making ocean noises. Poke even leans over and starts softly singing “Mandy,” earning him a look from the rest of the table, all to no avail.</p>
  <p>Five minutes later, Nate puts his napkin down on his empty plate. “I’ll take him.”</p>
  <p>“It’s okay,” Brad says, as much to Riley as to Nate.</p>
  <p>“No, watch the game, it’s okay. I’ll take him outside. Maybe it’ll help.”</p>
  <p>On the street in front of the restaurant, in cooler and quieter air, Nate tries “Open, Shut Them,” this time in English, and then the ABC song and then “Dartmouth’s In Town Again”—Holy Christ, where did <em>that</em> come from?</p>
</div><div>
  <p><br/>He does love this. He loves the feeling of Riley’s small body against his, he loves being the one to soothe Riley even when it is really not working, like now. But the song thing is driving him nuts.</p>
  <p>Nate tries the side step thing Brad’s mother always insists on, even when it clearly does not help. One, two, one, two. Riley is still wailing full-force, earning stares from passers-by, who avert their eyes the minute Nate stares back a challenge.</p>
  <p>“Chh, chh chh, chh, chh chh,” he huffs out through his teeth. He taps his fingers against Riley’s back, bouncing his knees slightly and letting Riley’s tense body bounce a little with him.</p>
  <p>“First got it when he was six/didn’t know any tricks,” he starts to murmur, holding Riley’s head against his cheek. It’s not really intentional, it just matches the beat he’s set. “Matter fact—“ and he slides over to the left.</p>
  <p>He continues: “First time he got on it he slipped/landed on his hip and bust his lip,” then resumes the bouncing, slowly moving Riley away from his body at arms’ length, then hustling him back in, rhythmically. Almost rhythmically, anyway.</p>
  <p>Riley is back out at arms’ length when Nate raps, “For a week he had to talk with a lisp/ Like thithhhh.”</p>
  <p>Tears crowded on his little cheeks, Riley fixes Nate with a hard stare and a furrowed brow. Assessing.</p>
  <p>“You are Papa’s child,” Nate says fondly, and goes back to the rhyme.</p>
  <p>Brad comes out to join them a few minutes later, his arms full of their jackets and Riley’s diaper bag, a camo mailbag deal that’s supposed to look macho even when stuffed to the gills with baby equipment. It was a gift.</p>
  <p>Nate’s hitting the chorus for the second time and Riley is grinning around the pacifier that’s clipped to his footie. Nate swings him in the air by his waist, his pajama covered feet stirring happily, in time, almost.</p>
  <p>“So we kick, push, kick, push, kick, push, kick, push/Coast –“ and here he holds Riley high up overhead. His arms start flapping. Nate smiles at him as he wiggles him back down.</p>
  <p>“So come and skate with me/Just a rebel looking for a place to be.” As he finishes the line, he sees Brad approaching them, his smile broad and simple.</p>
  <p>“You like that, Buddy?” Brad says to Riley, who loses the pacifier when he tries blow a raspberry at Brad. Brad catches it and coaxes it back in his mouth.</p>
  <p>“Daddy’s good at that, huh?” he says, leaning in to ruffle Riley’s hair. Brad’s crinkled cheek is close enough for Nate to kiss. He does, and then starts in on the third verse.</p>
  <p>The next morning Nate puts Jurrassic 5 on without preamble as he starts putting together pancakes and bacon for brunch. The din of the Espera family getting ready to face their second day of vacation increases the noise in the house about fourfold.</p>
  <p>Riley is blissfully ignorant, bouncing completely out of time to the music in the door jumper they have strung up between the kitchen and the great room. When Brad walks in, more dressed than normal for a Sunday morning, he squats down in the doorway beside Riley.</p>
  <p>Nate isn’t tense, exactly, but he glances up every so often from cracking eggs, waiting for a comment.</p>
  <p>Brad says nothing. He looks intently at Riley, eyebrows raised and nodding his head. Nate stops for a minute and watches as Brad lays the long fingers of one hand on the edge of the jumper and slowly adjust Riley’s bouncing, so it’s in time to the song playing, “Freedom”.</p>
</div><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Brad/Nate, in theater</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>S&amp;M of sorts, not explicit</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Count it off, Brad. Sixty seconds. Go.”</p><p>Nate wants to do so much. He can’t. The passenger side seatbelt is wound around Brad’s wrists just once, Nate’s tightened fist serving as the knot. The glow of the Blue Force Tracker is probably giving some otherworldly, synthetic illumination to the bones-and-blood beauty of Brad’s face. But there’s no time to look.</p><p>Fifty seconds. Nate’s counting, too. Their heads are bent together over the digital map, their helmets nearly touching. Nate continues to trace a line over the screen with his left hand, a detailed pretense that no one else could even see if they were checking. The slightest bit of loose flesh on Brad’s left wrist is getting marred by the pressure. Nate knows the skin is giving and knows the mark will be easily covered and never noticed. Both things please him.</p><p>Brad can hold his breath for seven minutes. He can endure excruciating pain for hours, mental torture for days. In all these things, his peers are here, and he outdoes them all by just enough for them to know it. Forty, thirty-nine seconds and counting, thick nylon and the pressure of an almost as strong hand is nothing to him. Not physically.</p><p>At thirty seconds, Brad’s breathing, still steady, is coming more through his teeth. His fingers slowly curl in, meeting the edges of his palms and pressing down hard. Nate wants to give himself to what’s happening, Brad’s submission, maybe Brad’s arousal, but he just pushes himself to greater situational awareness. Several of the men have crossed the path of the Humvee, but he senses no one walking with any intention, hears no distinct voice.</p><p>Nate gives in the slightest bit right after twenty. It’s so little and it feels huge. It feels like being let into your lover’s body, like seeing someone’s face uncomposed by orgasm or grief or enchantment for the first time. Nate drags his hand across the Blue Force Tracker and slides his thumb beneath the very edge of Brad’s blouse sleeve. He digs in hard. This time he can hear Brad on the inhale.</p><p>The meat of his palm feels stiff and burning from gripping the seatbelt, the sensation surfaces around the ten mark. It’s strange, he has rifle callouses and scabs – it’s not like he has the soft hands of a student anymore. But he’s putting every fucking thing he’s got into this one point of contact. Ten. He stays present. Nine.</p><p>Later he can replay this backwards and forwards. Giving Brad one minute, literally, of relief, one minute of having no responsibility for his men or his own actions. One minute in Nate’s hands. To give him that, Nate can’t actually have this experience until later. And he will, again and again, backwards and forwards, with more embellishments and questions and continuations in fantasy than he anticipated.</p><p>At five, Brad’s wrists twitch, then tremble. It can’t be from effort. It can’t even really be from sensation. At two, Nate readies himself to let go. One. Zero. Brad’s fingers uncurl at nearly the same moment Nate lets his grip loosen. He quickly untwists the seatbelt from around Brad’s wrist and hands it to Brad covertly, so it doesn’t just snap across the seat loudly.</p><p>Nate swipes his thumb across the nail marks he can’t see under Brad’s sleeve. Their fingertips touch briefly as he passes the seat belt over, still gazing studiously down at the map and nodding his head in pantomime of what his role here should be, is, should be.</p><p>Still, until he actually exits the Humvee and turns back, he can’t bring himself to look in Brad’s eyes. But he watches Brad’s right hand come to rest at his knee, hears the loose exhale with no tension behind it.</p><p>“Thank you,” Brad whispers. With no ‘sir’.</p><p>###</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Brad/Nate, the morning after "The Road Not Seen"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brad wakes to an empty bed and the sound of the hot water pipe thrumming along one wall. It’s only when Nate slips back in through the half-open door a few minutes later that Brad realizes he’s been running his hand across the other side of the bed, over the warmth left behind by Nate’s body. He stops abruptly.</p><p>“Morning,” Nate says, a smile held in check between his pressed lips. He’s wearing just his boxer shorts, which are a pale blue cotton, and his hair is a bit damp. “I hope it’s okay, I used one of the towels in the hall closet.”</p><p>Brad leans up on his elbows, blinks through the wash of light coming in from the far window. “That’s fine. Have you been up long?</p><p>“Maybe an hour.” Nate walks over to the desk chair and picks up his sweater from the night before. “I didn’t know what to do with myself.”</p><p>Brad blinks again as Nate walks toward the bed and sits up, getting his bearings. “I never sleep this late.”</p><p>Nate smiles and sits on the edge of the bed, around where Brad’s knee is beneath the blanket. Brad can smell his own soap. He wonders if it smells this good on him. “Did I wear you out?”</p><p>“Takes a lot to wear me out. Broken joints, enemy fire, peanut butter MREs.” He smiles lazily, but he’s aware that Nate’s about to get dressed. Maybe about to leave. He looks down at the covers. “Is this weird?”</p><p>Nate answers him softly, traces of both command and a suppressed laugh in his voice. “I think I can safely say this is really fucking weird.”</p><p>Brad swallows. “Are you sorry, sir?” He didn’t mean to say the sir. It’s still automatic. He hopes at some point that will go the fuck away.</p><p>“No.” And then Nate’s hand is on his, warm and newly clean. Brad turns his palm up and Nate runs his thumb over it, pressing in firmly. “Really fucking weird is just our speed, don’t you think?” Brad looks up to answer and the only way to do that is with a kiss. He keeps his mouth closed, he really needs to brush his teeth, not to mention take a leak. It feels right, though.</p><p>He pulls back just a bit, thinks of offering Nate one of his t-shirts. Instead he says, “Do you want to go out for breakfast?’</p><p>Nate shakes his head, leaning close. “I’m not over that porterhouse. Let me make you steak and eggs with what’s left. Maybe we’ll go out for lunch.”</p><p>“Maybe,” says Brad, without meaning it at all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Brad/Nate, Outtake from Deep Breaths Now</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>There's a puppy and they talk about fluid bonding</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="commentreply j-c-resize-images">
  <p>As Brad hip-checks the side door open, Nate catches sight of just one grey, speckled hind paw, fleeing the house, toward freedom.</p>
  <p>“Brad, the—“</p>
  <p>“Dog, yes, shit—“ he mutters. He shoulders the door open enough to put down the shopping bags and grab the red leash from the hook in nearly one swift motion. Then he’s gone so fast Nate doesn’t even really see him leave.</p>
  <p>“Mattie! Stay!” Brad calls outside. Then, a lower “Goddamnit,” and then right when Nate expects to hear Mattie’s full Christian name shouted across their front yard, there’s silence.</p>
  <p>He parts the plain white curtain on the kitchen window to survey the AO. Brad stands at the curb, arms folded across his chest, as their Great Dane puppy pees off the curb by herself for the first time. After making a break for it and disobeying Brad, who has regarded himself as Staff Sergeant Dog Commander since they brought Miss Fat Paws home.</p>
  <p>“Oh, you are so fucked,” Nate says out loud, with amusement. He’s not sure himself if he means Brad or Mattie.</p>
  <p>Feeling Nate’s eyes on this little scene, Brad looks up pointedly and makes a head motion to fully convey his annoyance at the dog, Nate, the universe. Mattie is still peeing. Nate laughs and lets the curtain fall.</p>
  <p>It would be a good idea at this point to at least make a show of being helpful, so Nate drags the bags over to the kitchen island and starts unpacking. It was a drugstore run, so it’s paper towels and dishwashing liquid for the kitchen, motor oil, some pantry items.</p>
  <p>Nate’s just getting the cereal up on the shelves and walking back to the island when Brad strides back in, Mattie held in one arm. Her leash hangs from his back pocket, the handle hitting him in the shin as he walks. The puppy is docile, snuggling against Brad’s ribs, and he’s clearly annoyed at the fact that this is working on him.</p>
  <p>“Did you see your dog?”</p>
  <p>“Yes, it looks like my dog is now trained to go in the street. Kudos to my dog. And you had to praise her, right?”</p>
  <p>Brad just glares. He turns Mattie in his hands so they’re nearly touching foreheads. “Mathilda Avril Lavigne Colbert-Fick,” he says, but softly and without malice, “you are a willful, deceiving, mutinous little bitch. But you have demonstrated your appreciation for a superior elimination experience. You might say I’m proud.” And he pats her on the head as she pants at him.</p>
  <p>Nate reaches in the first bag and pulls out the last item, an economy sized box of condoms. He holds it there for a moment, staring at the package.</p>
  <p>When he glances up, Brad has the puppy’s eyes covered with one hand and she’s wiggling against him. Nate smiles at the implication.</p>
  <p>“She’s a little young for the safe sex discussion,” Brad says, setting her down. Her nails skitter across the slate floor as she trots around, sniffing Brad’s shoes. Then she starts in on the periphery of the kitchen island, her big black nose pressed flat against it, snuffling loudly.</p>
  <p>Nate learned long ago that Brad does not respond well to open ended questions. “What do you think about it”s and “How would you feel if”s. It’s not that he needs commands. He just wants the other person in the conversation to man the fuck up and say what they mean. Nate can respect this.</p>
  <p>He shakes the box of condoms in his hand once, without holding it up.</p>
  <p>“This should be the last box we buy.”</p>
</div><div class="commentreply j-c-resize-images">
  <p></p>
  <div class="commentreply j-c-resize-images">
    <p>Brad freezes for a second, then continues the motion he was in the midst of, placing his hands on the island counter and leaning against it, one leg crossed over the other behind him.</p>
    <p>“Really,” he says, looking down at his nails.</p>
    <p>“Yeah.” There’s a good few seconds where all Nate can hear is the ridiculous sounds of Mattie’s nose, and Brad’s brain grinding on this idea.</p>
    <p>Brad taps the counter a few times. “I’ll get tested.”</p>
    <p>“I know. I will, too.”</p>
    <p>“You’re not the issue.” Nate cocks an eyebrow. He knows exactly what’s coming. It’s why he let this go on longer than it needed to. Brad’s head lifts and his eyes eventually follow. “You’re not the one who fucked whores.”</p>
    <p>There’s remorse in it, but also challenge.</p>
    <p>“And you’re not fucking them anymore, and enough time has passed. We can do this now.”</p>
    <p>“You don’t need to get tested.” And Brad doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t have to – they were both there.</p>
    <p>Brad’s last whore was nearly a year ago. He asked Nate first, saying that he couldn’t take it any more, another fucking deployment, with no release, no human contact, nothing. Nate said yes, hating it, but he said yes.</p>
    <p>Brad held out a long time anyway, and then he didn’t. Five years into their relationship, three plus years into promised monogamy.</p>
    <p>Nate reciprocated with a half-hearted fuck-buddy, another man. As it turned out they never actually fucked. It was supposed to make things fair, or even, or something. It didn’t.</p>
    <p>Brad has said that, in the few and separate hours that it happened, it seemed worth it. And at no other time. And not now, and not ever again.</p>
    <p>It’s been almost eleven months, moving in together, some well-chewed crow on both sides as needed, and a freaking adorable puppy who will grow in to her feet soon and probably devour half the furniture. It’s been talk of how to make their jobs easier on their life together and not the other way around. It’s been a mutual admission, finally, that it’s what they want – a life together. </p>
    <p>If Brad ever asks again, Nate will say no. And vice versa. </p>
    <p>“We’ll both get tested,” Nate says firmly. “You can do it anonymously, at a clinic.” Brad nods briefly. Nate doesn’t reach for him, but he puts down the condom box and places his hands on the opposite side of the counter, mirroring.</p>
    <p>“I’d like to know for certain,” Nate continues. He smiles warmly. The whole idea is to move forward. He has. They can. “As much as the fantasy turns you on, I wasn’t actually a cherry lieutenant when I met you. Not in the fullest sense.”</p>
    <p>Brad’s posture collapses the slightest bit with his huffed laugh and he leans down onto his elbows. “Keep playing dirty pool and you’ll have to crate the dog.”</p>
    <p>“Dirty pool?”</p>
    <p>Brad lets his mouth move around the words like he does sometimes on Nate’s cock, opening enough to lose contact for a second and then closing back down, firm and caressing. For all of Brad’s talk – usually filthy and during sex – of how much he loves Nate’s mouth, Nate’s pretty sure he loves Brad’s just as much.</p>
    <p>“I like my cherry lieutenant fantasy,” Brad says, drawing the words out slowly. “And I like the idea of feeling your skin and your heat when we fuck. Coming inside you. You coming inside me. Belonging to each other like that.”</p>
    <p>Nate pushes the condom box toward Brad’s now extended hand “Okay, yeah,” Nate says, heading for the treat box on the counter to assuage his guilt. “Crating the dog.”</p>
    <p>As he picks up Mattie under one arm and the treats in his other hand and heads for the basement, he hears Brad’s muffled laugh, and the sound of the box being ripped open.</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Zach/Shaun, Jealousy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's explicit car sex, yay</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zach’s done it in the car before but that was really different.</p><p>That was with Tori. In the backseat. Usually in one of the public beach parking lots by the shoreline, the car parked at the edges near the crackling reeds. The sex was gentle and quiet, edged with romance or the giggling fear of getting caught, or both.</p><p>That was nothing like this.</p><p>*</p><p>The classroom door squeaks open for the third time. Zach turns his head again. The other parents standing in the back are blocking his view from where he sits among the rows of wooden chairs. Melanie, Violet’s mom, ducks her head down next to Zach’s and smiles at him when he turns back around toward Cody’s teacher, who welcomes them all to the meeting.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” she says, patting his shoulder, “he’ll be here.”</p><p>*</p><p>The parking garage beneath their building is concrete gray and lonely. But within Zach’s car, parked in an abandoned corner, everything seems close and immediate. All the sounds of their bodies are amplified by the airless silence; the crush and crumple of rough denim; Shaun’s breath stuttering in and out; Zach’s hand slipping quick and dry over Shaun’s cock, fast enough to sound like two sticks striving to spark a fire.</p><p>*</p><p>Cody’s teacher, Diana, starts to talk about the curriculum for the first half of the year in her gentle Russian accent. Every now and then Mark – Henry’s dad, who Zach met for the first time on the way in tonight – leans over and makes a joke or asks a question. He’s witty and nice. He has swirling tattoos that disappear beneath both shirtsleeves.</p><p>Mark mentions that Henry is adopted. He mentions that he’s a single dad.</p><p>*</p><p>A short moan, soft and tortured, breaks through Shaun’s ragged breathing.</p><p>“Let me touch you,” Shaun says. It’s not an easy proposition at the moment, since Zach is straddling him on the passenger seat, kissing him hard and stroking him toward orgasm. Shaun’s jeans are at his knees. His hands grip the back of the headrest, mainly to give Zach more room in the small space. It’s fucking uncomfortable and hot as hell.</p><p>“Later. Now I’m making you come.”</p><p>Shaun gasps and pushes up hard into Zach’s hand.</p><p>*<br/>Diana finishes the question and answer period and thanks everyone for coming. Amid applause, Zach turns to Mark to ask what he thinks about the reading program. It’s only then he realizes that Mark’s arm is slung across the back of his chair. Mark’s expression is cool, but warmth and something else seep through. He leans close. He’s been leaning close the whole time.</p><p>“Maybe we could get together some time. With the boys.”</p><p>The crowd dissipates and at last he sees Shaun by the door underneath some paper cutouts of leaves with the kids’ names on them. His jaw is set, his eyes intense. He’s pushing everything he’s feeling into lockdown. But Zach can see it. Shaun raises his chin slightly in acknowledgement.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says to Mark, still fixed on Shaun. “We should set up a play date. Will you excuse me? My partner is here.”</p><p>*</p><p>Headlights sweep through the car, along the wall in front of the windshield, and then down the length of the garage. The motor sound is faint, but Zach holds his body still anyway. He keeps his hand moving hard and fast on Shaun, his other hand now holding Shaun still by his chest. Shaun’s dress shirt is getting damp with sweat.</p><p>They’re both panting. Zach takes Shaun’s mouth with his again, feeding on Shaun’s moans as they slowly become one long, shaking sound that Zach swallows down, as Shaun’s cock trembles in Zach’s hand.</p><p>*</p><p>They’re almost home when Zach finally breaks the silence, keeping his eyes on the road.</p><p>“Thanks for not dropping the guy with one of your ninja moves, at least.”</p><p>He can feel Shaun turn to glare at him. “I didn’t say anything.”</p><p>“You’re not saying anything at all.”</p><p>Shaun sighs. “I’m not mad at you.”</p><p>“Okay,” Zach says, gentling his voice as he comes to a halt at a stop sign. He looks at Shaun. “I’d hope not. I wasn’t flirting with him.”</p><p>“I know. And you handled it fine.” Shaun smiles even as his face looks heavy with frustration.</p><p>“Look,” he says, “other people are gonna want you. I don’t like how that made me feel. But I have to deal with it.” Zach presses a tight-lipped smile toward him and pulls forward down their street. Shaun huffs out a breath and leans back in his seat. “Only an idiot wouldn’t want to be with you.”</p><p>Zach pulls into the parking garage and drives past their spot. When he parks, he thinks of all the things he wants to say. I love you. I don’t want anyone else. I love that you want me so much. Don’t be such an ass next time.</p><p>Instead he undoes both seat belts, throws his leg across Shaun’s body and says everything with a rough kiss.</p><p>*</p><p>Shaun is laughing lightly the way he does sometimes after he comes, the way he does when his troubles are erased and he connects with the well of happiness that seems to be at the core of him.</p><p>“After Amy leaves and Cody’s asleep,” he says, rubbing Zach’s shoulders with his palms, “you’re mine.”</p><p>Zach kisses him again, looking forward to it. Always, he thinks, and then he says it.</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Brad/Nate, Apocalypse, "As The Sun Fucks The Dawn"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sex, not super explicit, there's an apocalypse. Side-note, I wrote this in 2013 and I'm more than a little freaked out about it.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In an old-school Boston bar with sawdust on the floor, Brad thinks maybe his luck is changing. Of course, he doesn't believe in luck, Charms not withstanding, and the world is going to shit. It's definitely less bleak, though, with this kid Nate Fick staring at him as his friends debate politics with Brad.<br/><br/>He's got a plush mouth, a sharp wit behind an easy, affable manner. He's got strong, beautiful fingers wrapped tight around a highball glass.<br/><br/>He's got an apartment about three blocks from this bar.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Under normal circumstances, Nate sometimes tells himself wouldn't have taken the risk of bringing a six foot four, heavily combat trained Marine back home for a trick.<br/><br/>But it wasn't normal. Brad was beautiful, and wry, and bought his friends a round of drinks for the cost of being teased for being lefties. He fell right into the conversation about the quarantine in New York, the medical efficacy, the legal ramifications.<br/><br/>Brad was heading there, he said, to New York. Part of a cross-country trip on his bike. Only the death toll had gone to nearly 150 to a few thousand in the space of two days. CNN actually had a counter in the corner of the screen and it was going up, up, up.<br/><br/>So fuck it. The world was ending. Ha ha ha.<br/><br/>What is it Brad always says? Situation normal, all fucked up.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>He nearly divests Nate of his jeans in the doorway, fucks him right there on the landing. But the condoms are in his backpack, and anyway, common courtesy requires he take a shower first.<br/><br/>“Pushed it hard on the bike today,” he says and Nate catches the double meaning before he does. The smile on his face as he walks backwards toward the bathroom practically lights up the dark hall as Brad follows.<br/><br/>Every click on this trip is doing it's job, taking him one step away from Kim and Jack and all the shit that went down. To think he'd actually considered leaving the Corps for her, Jesus. But every click and hookup is doing it's job. Tomorrow he'll hit New York, another goal reached.<br/><br/>Only, as it turns out, not.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>It was good sex, really good. Strong hands, moments of grappling and laughter and Brad's mouth on his, deep and searching. They got clean in the shower and then dirty again on the bed. Brad excused himself, hoarsely, for another shower. Nate felt smug and well-fucked and kind of okay with that being it.<br/><br/>He tugged on his boxers and a particularly wrecked Dartmouth t-shirt and clicked on the television. It seemed to take a moment more than usual to spark to life.<br/><br/>There was that water pipe in his Cambridge apartment that always sounded like someone walking with an uneven gait. Bodies on the television screen from an aerial shot, too many to count. A scroll on the bottom that reads ME, NH, RI, NY.<br/><br/>Then Brad, naked and wet, slapping his face, yelling something, somehow forcing the air back into his lungs.<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>Once Nate is back online, everything is decided quickly. So quickly Brad realizes there must be more to the one night stand version of his life story than he first suspected, but they'll deal with that later.<br/><br/>If they make it out of here. To outrun – what. Some disease that appears to be airborne, blooming like yeast from the center point of lower Manhattan, why the fuck is it always lower Manhattan.<br/><br/>The rate of infection is growing, exponentially. They can probably figure out the exact equation. There seem to be survivors left behind, no pattern to that yet.<br/><br/>Nate Fick tells Brad all of this as he throws things into what must be his fucking schoolbag: batteries, a compass, a swiss army knife. A tiny horseshoe on a long chain.</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Ray/Nate, Brad/Walt, "This is a crisis"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Someone had better be dying, Ray," is the greeting Brad gives him, but he steps back and lets Ray into the house. Iceman must have still been half-asleep, because it's only then he notices Ray has the dog with him.<br/><br/>"My love life is dying, Brad. Janice, sit." Against all conceivable odds, Ray's dog is well behaved, which has always bothered Brad at a primal level. Ray might have made a decent sergeant. The whole of space and time must be seriously fucked up.<br/><br/>"LT's in town," Brad says dully, and points to the couch for Ray to sit. His cocker spaniel deposits her rump on the floor and watches the proceedings avidly. She looks like she's smiling. "And he kicked you out of your own house? That's advanced, even for you."<br/><br/>"No!" Ray says. He scrubs angrily at his hair and paces the floor for a second, until Brad pointedly says, "Ray, <em>sit</em>."<br/><br/>Ray does. Janice actually looks amused.<br/><br/>"What happened and do I need to make up the couch for you," Brad says, seating himself in an armchair.<br/><br/>"I'm a mess!" Ray says and before Brad can agree with that excellent assessment he continues. "I've got Nate in my bed. Nate, Brad. You've seen his ass. And he puts up with mine. He's, like, freaky levels of physical and intellectual perfection. The ancient Greeks would <em>shit</em> themselves over this guy. And I'm in love with him!"<br/><br/>"I'm three seconds away from choking you out, Ray, and I've come to believe the dog doesn't really care either way."<br/><br/>"Brad!" Ray shouts. Brad winces and turns his head slightly back toward the wing of the house but Ray doesn't think much of it. "I woke up at 2 a.m. and all I could think was holy shit, I'm never going to eat pussy again in my life! I don't know if I can do it!"<br/><br/>Brad is that kind of still he gets just before he shoots something which makes Walt's shuffling appearance in the hallway all the more dramatic.<br/><br/>"Ray?" he says blearily. He honest to God rubs at his eyes like a little kid and he's wearing boxers and a t-shirt that is too long, must be Brad's, oh God, oh God, oh God.<br/><br/>"Oh, God," Ray says. Brad gets up.<br/><br/>"This one is all yours," Brad says, to Walt but he's still eyeballing Ray. "I'm commandeering your dog, mainly because I cannot believe you dragged her into this bullshit as a fucking <em>cover</em> for your insanity if Nate wakes up and finds you gone. You'll get her back if and when you pull your shit together. Janice, come," and with that, Janice happily trots after Brad. She pauses with him in the doorway when Brad stops to kiss Walt on the temple, then they disappear.<br/><br/>"Um," says Ray.<br/><br/>"So," Walt says, waving at Ray to get his ass off the couch. "You make the coffee and we'll discuss your commitment issues."</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Doc/Walt, it's zombies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If there's anything I can't believe I ever wrote, it's this. But I do love it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"He needs a cas evac," Brad says, wild-eyed. He presses down with the exact amount of pressure Doc told him to, his palms meeting the gaping hole in Walt's chest.</p><p>Ray shoulders Brad's rifle uncomfortably, ten yards from the rest of them.</p><p>"Five dead Hajis," he calls out, eye still plastered to the scope. "We're clear."</p><p>"No time," Doc says. Walt looks at him and Doc tries to see the smile in those eyes, innocent and knowing and a survivor of this hell.</p><p>The Humvees sound like a wailing scream of grief, closer and closer.</p><p>"Oh thank fucking God," Ray says, and drops the rifle. He runs out from behind the berm where they took cover. He waves his arms, does everything wrong.</p><p>"We're here!" he yells, scratched through with dust and terror. "We're here!"</p><p>Brad doesn't take his eyes off Walt until the blood begins to bubble out of his mouth. Then he stares up at Doc.</p><p>"No time," Doc mutters again. He throws his gloves into the sand. Puts a palm on Walt's forehead, above where his eyes have rolled back into his skull. Kisses him there.</p><p>Then all the boots come running.</p><p>*</p><p>"You could lose your command over this," Brad says across the room. He has so much of Walt's blood down his blouse it's like he bathed in it. </p><p>Nate looks up from where he sits in the corner, knees to chest. In half an hour he can give more blood. The way he's been since they got back to camp, they'll probably have to hold him back from giving all of it.</p><p>"I said I'd bring you all back, Sergeant. I intend to make good on that promise."</p><p>"Hands!" Doc snaps. Ray winces as if he's been hit and goes over to the bowl to scrub again.</p><p>"You're restarting his heart in a jar and you're worried about sterility. . . " Ray mumbles while Brad growls at him to shut up.</p><p>"I'm restarting his heart in a saline solution, Person--"</p><p>"And nice to know you're the reason we don't have any fucking batteries!"</p><p>"Corporal," Nate says fiercely. He's a pale gray. When he's closer to chalk white he'll offer up his vein again. Ray exhales loudly and goes back over to the table with clean hands. Doc glares at him until Ray clasps his hands behind his back, awaiting orders.</p><p>Doc refocuses on Walt's heart where it lays before them, unbeating. On the other side of the tent, there's just the slow brushing sound of cloth against skin, as Brad carefully cleans the corpse of Walt Hasser.</p><p>"I'll take the heat for this Ray," Doc says snarls through gritted teeth. "None of you were here. Work of a madman. Take that edge," he orders and nods to the wire handle of the makeshift sieve he has set up.</p><p>Ray goes to pat him on the back, thinks better of it. He gets his fingers on the edge and they lift the heart slowly from the liquid on three.</p><p>"Never mind, Doc," he says, and they walk in step over to another area draped in tarp and littered with the wires and batteries Ray scrambled to get on their way in.</p><p>"Semper Fi."</p><p>It's night. They're on twenty five percent watch, so everybody can catch some shut-eye while the rest of the unit covers for them. Doc cut them all loose for the next part.</p><p>Brad feels responsible. Nate is noble and Ray is both heartsick over Walt and grossly fascinated by what's about to happen. Stinetorf came in to assist -- Doc wouldn't let another Corpsman near this -- and had to be pried away from Doc's side when he ordered them all out.</p><p>Whatever they feel, it doesn't come close to what Doc feels. And even what Doc feels, in his opinion, doesn't matter one fucking bit.</p><p>Walt has to live.</p><p>"Sir," he'd said to Nate, head bowed and kerchief clutched in his hand. "Permission--"</p><p>And Nate had responded "Do it,"without missing a step.</p><p>"Don't know if you're the luckiest bastard in the world," he murmurs to Walt. "Or the unluckiest". Torches are set up around the staging area, illuminating the inside of Walt's body, the meat and bone of him, cooling.</p><p>Beside him, on a truly sterile tray, Walt's heart pulses as if to reply.</p><p>Doc watches it blankly and then turns away. He takes one last look into the cavity. It's as good as it can be under the circumstances.</p><p>"If this all goes FUBAR, Hasser, I'm sorry," he says, lifting up the heart. "But then, if I remember correctly, I said something like that before I kissed you." He snickers and turns to Walt's chest. Every motion of his hands is careful, calibrated. They have one chance.</p><p>"And it did all go to hell. Didn't it, darlin'," he says. With bloodied gloves, he reaches behind him to the instrument tray, and goes to work.</p><p>*</p><p>The story they come up with is so ludicrous and yet Doc is not surprised when scuttlebutt comes back that Godfather wants to recommend them all for commendations over it. That's how it goes out here -- defy the laws of God and nature, lie and say you were all exposed to toxic chemicals, boom, war heroes.</p><p>It gives them cover. And it gives Doc cover to stay with Walt as long as necessary. He's been exposed, too.</p><p>"You're young," he says into Walt's sternum. His face is smeared with blood; he can smell the iron and life of it. "You're a strong motherfucker," he says, eyes sliding closed. "World class gunner for fucking First Recon. Got that?"</p><p>So their sweet nothings are fucked up, too. Obviously, so are Doc's demonstrations of love. Walt always liked that, though. How Doc saw those things: a strong, tough motherfucker. Beautiful, but not a Momma's boy, not a baby. A man pulsing with life.</p><p>Doc lies there without moving, ear to Walt's chest. He waits there until the alarm on his watch goes off, signaling that the charge has worn off.</p><p>Walt's heart keeps beating.</p><p>When it's dawn and he's almost asleep, still telling Walt those sweet nothings, a hand slaps down on the back of his own. Doc snaps his head up, watching with a critical eye. There's no room to be sentimental here.</p><p>Walt's hand twitches once, then again. Then it moves, shakily, over the back of Doc's own.</p><p>Walt groans softly, like he's hungover. It's not pain and it's not pleasure. It's coming back to consciousness.</p><p>He groans again, more animal. But he pats down onto Doc's hand as if to comfort him.</p><p>Doc looks up. Walt's eyes are still closed, clearly moving in their sockets beneath the lids. This could be FUBAR or this could be better than that. But at least they have a fucking chance.</p><p>"Hey," Tim says. "Hey, darlin'. Wake up now, Walt. Wake up."</p>
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<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Brad/Ray, Cooking Under Fire, I'm Just an Asshole Standing in Front of an Idiot, Asking Him to Love Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rated G. I love them and I gave them a schmaltzy happy ending, I'm not ashamed.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The worst part about it is it's a gorgeous, sunny day outside, best weather in weeks. And of course there's Brad looming at the threshold, fucking it all up.</p><p>"You're not invited in," Ray says. He keeps his front door propped open with the toes of his right foot and reaches inside for his denim jacket, which is hanging on a hook. His headphones were also hanging on the hook so those clatter to the floor, but he gets his jacket on and then extracts his sunglasses from the inside pocket.</p><p>"Well, I'm not a vampire, so," Brad says. He's watching every single move Ray makes, just like old times, and it's weird to wonder if someone is being critical about the way you put on your sunglasses, isn't it?</p><p>"I beg to differ," Ray says. Brad swallows. Good, that hit landed. "What do you want, Colbert."</p><p>Brad takes a long breath. "Can I come in?"</p><p>"No." Ray stands there and takes in the sight of him for a second. He looks the same. He looks tired. He looks beautiful and it sucks.</p><p>"So this is going better than I'd hoped," Brad says and Ray can't help but huff out a slight laugh. "And I guess I'm just going to say this, so if I have to say it while you're body checking me from entering your domicile, fine. I called off my wedding. I'm fucking in love with you. I have no expectation that anything can happen between us, because I was a massive dick to you, but if nothing else I thought I could give you the satisfaction of finally hearing me say you were right. As much as it pains me."</p><p>Ray pats at his jacket to make sure he has his keys and steps outside onto the landing, pulling his door shut behind him. He gestures to the two metal lawn chairs set up in front.</p><p>His guts are a swirling mess but he thinks he sounds steady when he says, "So what happened?" Then he sits down in the chair closer to the door.</p><p>Even though Ray gestures at the other chair again, Brad does not sit down. He stares at Ray seated in front of him, then at the empty chair, then just kneels the fuck down and seats himself at Ray's feet.</p><p>"Brad--"</p><p>"Just. Please," Brad says, lowering his eyes to his palms, spread across his knees as if to show Ray he's surrendering. Across the way, past Brad's head, he sees Evan and John getting out of their car with too many grocery bags. John waves and Ray picks up his head a bit but does nothing else, hoping they'll just move along for now.</p><p>Brad speaks again. "We were at Williams and Sonoma," he says and Ray really wants to correct him and also, so jealous right now. "That whole registry thing. My sister was with us--"</p><p>"Lauren?" Ray asks because while both Brad's sisters were great, Lauren was more likely to know which Kitchen Aid Brad should get while Meghan was more likely to go BASE jumping with him.</p><p>"Yeah," Brad says, smiling slightly. "Lauren. And she came with us because, no surprise, we only got there by fighting about it first. I didn't want to have anything to do with it. I'd told Allie to just pick out whatever she wanted, and she asked me if I planned to spend our marriage living in her house or our house."</p><p>Brad inhales and exhales; Ray wonders if he's counting breaths.</p><p>"I don't want to make you listen to any more about her than you already have," Brad continues. "That wasn't fair either. So we go, and Lauren comes, and they're looking at, I don't even fucking know, napkin rings. I'm trying to levitate myself out of the store with the power of my mind. Then I see this display. Of copper pots."</p><p>"The Mauviels," Ray whispers. The motherlode.</p><p>"The Mauviels," Brad confirms, "which I knew. Because of you. I saw them there and honestly Ray, there's still a dirty part of me that feels like all metals conduct heat, what's the goddamn difference, but then it's not like I'd trade my bike in for a Honda, so I guess I get it. Anyway, I saw them and the first thing I thought, the very first thing that came into my head, was, oh, I can get these for Ray." A stricken look crosses Brad's face and he looks away, out onto the road that leads to Ray's townhouse.</p><p>"Like no time had passed. Like I was getting them for our house. Like I wanted to see your eyes bug out when I gave them to you, and hear you go on at interminable length about why Longostinas are actually better but these are still really fucking good. Then you'd explain how seasoning a pan worked again and talk me through it--"</p><p>Brad stops abruptly, pinches the bridge of his nose. Ray pushes his sunglasses up so they're resting on top of his head. He's still barefoot. There's a Yamaha parked in front of the landing, he notices, that looks exactly the same as when they were in college. So either Brad got the same make or he's kept up the old one so well it looks unchanged. Probably the second.</p><p>Ray can feel, deep beneath the layers of his solidified anger, something in motion, like lava.</p><p>"So," Brad says. He sounds far away. He gets up, from the ground, stands there for a moment and then, like he realizes it's awkward to unravel all his height while Ray is still seated, he drags the other lawn chair a few feet forward and sits again, facing Ray.</p><p>"So, that's what happened. I had an episode in cookware and realized my whole life was wrong. And there's, believe me, a lot more to it, but I'm not getting married. That's done."</p><p>Ray rubs the soles of his feet together. It is a beautiful day but there's still a chill, and he's in the clothes he slept in, plus the jacket. Brad puts his elbows on his knees, leans forward, like he's waiting for Ray to take a turn. </p><p>"What do you want, Brad?" Ray says. He's dying to know the rest of the story. Truth be told he wants every little detail, wants all the gossip, but that's what comes out. The question Brad could never answer.</p><p>"Whatever you think I'm worthy of having," Brad says. He makes an aborted movement with his hand, about to reach for Ray, his knee, maybe, but he stopped himself.</p><p>"Like I said. In love with you. Was then. Am now. I am sober. I have talked this out with several people in my life. I know what I'm asking for, Ray. This isn't an escape hatch from another commitment."</p><p>Ray grins because having yourself quoted back to yourself is objectively awesome. "You remember that, huh," he says. </p><p>Brad turns his palm up and reaches it out, leaves it there hovering between them.</p><p>"I remember everything," he says.</p><p> </p><p>###</p>
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